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Land  Currency 

By 
Stephen  Maybe 11 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 

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LAND  CURRENCY, 


t:r.EjPs_tise 


ON  THK 


INIPORTANT    SUBJKCT 


OF 


O  TAX. 


BY  STEPHKN  ;IvIAYBEIvI>, 
AUTHOR   OF    "CIVILIZATION   CIVILIZED." 


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PUBLISHED  AT  2(>5  CLARA  STREET, 
San  Francisco,  Cal. 


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^Entered  according  to  Act  of  Ckjngress  by  Stephen  Maybell,  1890.     All  right* 

reserved. 


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i='K.H:F'jPLCH:. 


I  hold  that  the  question  of  Finance  includes  every  other.  That 
no  question  pertaining  to  society  or  individual  can  exclude  it,  but  that 
all  must  finally  come  to  the  sum  of  its  ways  and  means. 

Money  is  the  medium  of  co-operation.  A  perfect  money  would 
make  a  perfect  co-operation — an  imperfect  money  an  imperfect  co- 
operation. Give  a  nation  a  just  form  of  money  and  its  institutions 
musf  tend  toward,  and  end  in  justice.  A  progressive  form  of  money 
therefore  includes  all  societary  progression.  An  unjust  institution 
cannot  survive  in  a  just  state  of  Finance ;  therefore,  Finance  reform 
includes  all  reforms,  "ways  and  means.'''' 

Money  is  the  current  for  the  distribution  of  product.  If  it  be  honest 
form,  society  will  be  healthy ;  if  it  be  dishonest  form,  society  will  be 
diseased.  For  money  is  bookkeeping.  If  it  be  false,  the  bookkeeping 
will  be  false,  and  they  who  earn  will  have  not  what  they  earn.  If  it 
M  be  true  the  bookkeeping  will  be  true,  and  they  who  earn  will  have  what 
they  earn.  For  under  a  false  system  of  Finance,  as  under  a  false 
system  of  accounts,  the  producer  of  wealth  may  be  marked  as  possessing 
nothing,  and  the  non-producer  as  possessing  all.  Thus,  all  depends 
upon  a  true  instrument  of  distribution  that  product  may  reach  the 
deserving.  Thus,  the  science  of  Finance  is  the  science  of  Justice,  and 
the  only  science  of  justice.  I  do  not  claim  that  land  currency  is 
the  final  of  an  utterly  true  form  of  money,  but  that  by  basing  currency 
upon  land  we  are  closely  approaching  the  true  base  of  all  values — 
namely,  man  ;  for  all  value  emanates  from  man,  he  imparts  it  to  all 
things.  The  Romans  brought  splendid  marbles  from  depopulated 
cities  to  Rome.  These  marbles  were  valueless  where  they  were,  but 
amid  Rome's  population  were  valuable .  That  population  also  removed 
and  these  marbles  would  again  become  valueless.  All  value,  then,  is 
the  fiat  of  man — his  proclamation  unto  himself.  The  closer  man 
nears  unto  himself  the  closer  he  nears  the  truth.  The  further  he 
depends  exteriorally  the  more  dependent,  faithless,  cowardly  and  brutal 
he  falls.  For  divinity  lieth  inward  and  materiality  lieth  outward — 
within  the  cause,  without  the  effect.  The  light  is  in  the  center  of  its 
rays. 

27228  L 


IT.  PREFACE. 

When  we  get  land  as  a  base  we  get  nearer  the  total,  and  therefore 
nearer  the  truth,  the  center — for  man,  the  source  of  value,  is  the 
true  basis  of  all  Thus  land  currency  is  a  vast  step  in  the  right 
direction. 

Land  currency  would  soon  become  a  man  currency,  as  flower 
becomes  fruit.  It  is  the  next  thing.  It  is  the  flower  preceeding  the 
fruit.  It  reverses  the  present  situation.  It  nationalizes  mortgages. 
The  Republic  becomes  the  mortgager  and  receives  the  interest.  Now 
the  Republic  is  the  mortgagee  and  pays  the  interest. 

It  fits  into  our  present  form  of  finance  and  fits  into  our  future  form 
of  finance.  It  fits  into  mortgage  and  fits  into  the  abolition  of  mort- 
gage. The  future  must  fit  into  the  present.  Whatever  is  proposed 
as  future  that  does  not  fit  cannot  be  future.  Growth  depends  upon 
harmony.  We  may  re  volute,  but  we  must  return  to  evolution  and  the 
law  of  similar-better.  Like  can  only  produce  better-like,  and  by  steps 
ascend  to  better-unlike.*  Revolutions  are  but  lightnings  and  light- 
nings' blast.  They  are  effects,  never  causes.  Thought  is  causation,  and 
thinking  evolutes.  An  oppressed  nation  can  achieve  more  by  one 
year's  thinking  than  a  century's  fighting.  The  absence  of  thought  is 
the  presence  of  evil,  and  all  evil  lies  in  the  people's  thoughtlessness, 
I  leave  but  small  legacy  to  the  world,  but  it  is  a  great  one.  It  is  but 
one  word,  and  the  word  is  "Think." 

*A  clipping  from  the  editorial  columns  of  the  "Pacific  Uniou_"  from  the  pen 
of  its  brainy  editor,  J.  W.  Hines,  is  apropos:  "One  serious  defect  in  the  general 
teaching  of  schools  of  reform,  is  the  habit  of  endeavoring  to  flx  the  attention  of 
the  people  exclusively  upon  the  end  proposed,  while  the  intermediate  and  suc- 
cessive steps  by  which  tlaat  end  is  reached  are  regarded  with  indifference,  if  not 
with  entire  neglect.  Evolution,  especially  on  the  line  of  moral  and  social  growth, 
usually,  and  perhaps  universally,  proceeds  in  an  orderly  and  steady  course,  and 
no  circumstance,  however  trivial  in  itself,  can  well  be  overlooked  or  dispensed 
with. 


liflHD   CURI^EHCY. 


Reader,  the  important  question  herein  presented 
for  your  earnest  consideration  is  so  fraught  with  conse- 
quence to  you  and  to  all  you  hold  dear,  that  I  ap- 
proach the  task  with  a  sense  of  its  magnitude,  thinkmg 
I  may  not  present  it  as  clearly  as  its  vast  importance 

necessitates. 

I  would  call  the  special  attention  of  the  business 
men  of  the  community  and  the  builders  and  manufact- 
urers of  its  wealth,  to  the  subject  herein  presented,  for 
nothing  more  closely  touches  their  concern  than  that 
of  Money.  I  hope  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
will  appreciate  the  importance  of  the  science  herein 
presented,  for  it  governs  their  every  action,  since  it 
depresses  or  elevates  their  condition,  and  conditions 
govern.  But  they  who  handle  money  as  some  handle 
tools,  who  understand  what  a  mortgage  means  and 
realize  the  effects  of  interest,  and  its  absence,  and  the 
presence  of  money  in  trade  and  production,  will  cer- 
tainly find  in  these  pages  matters  designed  to  interest 
them.  Yet  amons;  the  hardest  toilers  here  and  there 
are  many  who  have  deep  insight  into  the  economics  of 
society.  I  do  not  mean  that  noisy,  bitter,  vulgar  class, 
whose  philosophy  never  rises  higher  than  coarse  individ- 
ual vituperation,  whoso  reform  is  simply  the  deform  of 
malice,  but  the  grave  and  honest  thinkers  of  the  land 
to  be  found  everywhere  shaping  and  forming  the  wealth 
of  civilization.     Of  such  I  also  most  especially  ask  in- 


6  LAND    CURRENCY. 

vestigation  of  this  essay,  for  they  form  the  great 
thought  centers  that  electrify  the  lesser  consciousness 
around  them,  and  from  their  noble  ranks  spring  the 
greatest  of  our  land. 

To  the  farmer  I  would  also  most  especially  address 
these  pages.  To  him  whose  task  is  the  most  laborious, 
whose  effort  is  the  basis  of  all  effort,  upon  whose 
energy  the  entire  fabric  rests  and  therefore  upon 
whose  welfare  the  state  depends  as  a  dome  upon  its 
sustaining  pillars. 

Therefore  the  more  positively  the  farmer's  success  is 
assured,  the  more  certain  the  prosperity  of  society 
itself  is  founded  by  the  strengthening  of  that  which 
supports  it  from  center  to  periphery. 

Even  as  the  farmer's  effort  is  the  basis  underlying 
all  other  effort,  so  is  the  land  which  he  tills  the  basis 
underlying  all  other  values.  And  I  hold  it  to  be  self- 
evident  inasmuch  as  society  depends  upon  agricult- 
ure, that  land  therefore  is  the  base  underlying  all 
value  and  should  form  the  base  of  the  Government's 
currency  for  the  exchange  of  all  values,  land  being 
the  primal  factor,  and  of  all  values  the  total. 

Land  everywhere  forms  the  leading  security  upon 
which  banks  loan.  Land,  therefore,  being  the  security 
behind  the  world's  mortgages,  is  the  primordial  value 
back  of,  and  upon  which,  the  world's  monetary  trans- 
actions rest.  The  clearer  we  comprehend  this  simple 
fact  the  better  we  shall  build  our  financial  system. 

I  shall  not  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  seem- 
ingly abstruse,  yet  simple,  problems  of  finance;  but 
shall  co^ifine  these  pages  exclusively  to  that  portion  of 
its  philosophy  immediately  concerned  in  the  question 
of  its  national  currency  based  on  land. 


LAND  CURRENCY. 


A  GREAT  QUESTION. 


The  deep  importance  of  this  question  can  be  esti- 
mated when  we  realize  that  the  philosoph}^  of  finance 
is  the  highest  key  in  the  scale  of  human  association. 

That  on  its  rational  or  irratioral  adjustment  de- 
pends the  fate  of  empire.  And  by  the  wisdom  or  folly  of 
its  economy  a  nation  must  rise  or  fall,  since  it  controls 
the  condition  physically,  intellectually  and  morally  of 
both  citizen  and  state. 

As  a  nation  rises  from  barbarism  to  civilization  it 
takes  on  a  condition  of  closer  and  closer  interwoven  de- 
pendence between  its  numerous  members,  until  the 
wants  of  each  become  dependent  upon  the  production 
of  every  other,  thus  necessitating  a  continual  uni- 
versal exchange.  This  exchange  necessitates  the  for- 
mation of  an  instrument  known  as  Money. 

It  is  clearly  obvious,  then,  that  if  this  instrument 
be  inadequate  in  the  performance  of  its  functions 
either  through  insuficiency  of  volume  or  injustice  of 
operation,  if  it  be  not  rational  in  its  issue  and  just 
in  its  result,  then,  failing  in  its  purpose,  the  interchange 
of  products  between  the  numerous  members  must  cease, 
their  general  co-operation  halt,  their  manufactures  sink 
back  upon  agriculture,  their  agriculture  sink  back 
upon  barbarism,  till  fallen  columns  in  desert  wastes 
mark  the  footsteps  of  the  error. 

SILVER    CERTIFICATES. 

There  is  in  circulation  a  form  of  currency  known 
as  "  Silver  Certificates,"  the  Government  receiving 
silver  bullion,  storing  it  in  its  vaults  and  issuing  to  the 
depositors  these  certificates,  denominating  the  amount 
deposited,  which  entitle  the  holder  at  any  time  to  de- 


8  LAND    CURRENCY, 

mand  and  receive  the  bullion  coined  or  otherwise. 
They  are  transferable  and  receivable  for  all  public  and 
private  debts.  They  are  therefore  an  honest  currency 
and  represent  a  real  value  held  by  the  Government  in 
trust  for  the  holder. 

Although  they  are  but  paper,  and  contain  no  in- 
trinsic value  (hardl}^)  of  themselves,  they  represent 
value. 

The  holders  never  think  or  wish  to  exchange  them 
for  the  heavy  metal  in  the  vault.  For  intelligence  dis- 
likes the  rather  Indian  fashion  of  finance  of  packing 
quantity  and  weight,  and  prefers  the  more  civilized 
custom  of  simply  holding  a  voucher. 

This  at  once  annihilates  the  aboriginalistic  chimera 
that  a  money  must  have  length,  breadth,  thickness, 
weight,  and  an  intrinsic  value,  and  establishes  the 
fact  that  a  paper  currency  when  based  upon  an  actual 
value  is  the  most  superior,  preferable  and  convenient 
form  of  money,  saving  the  cost  of  smelting  ores,  mint- 
ing metals,  loss  through  abrasion,  and  being  restorable 
at  cost  of  printing. 

Every  virtue  that  applies  to  silver  certificates 
applies  equally  to  land  certificates.  They  would  have  no 
intrinsic  value,  but  would  represent  an  actual  value 
held  in  trust  by  the  Government.  Thus  land  certifi- 
cates, as  silver  certificates,  would  be  an  honest  form  of 
money. 

This,  then,  is  the  grand  truth  underlying  the  issue  of 
silver  certificates  and  it  underlies  the  entire  financial 
philosophy — namely,  that  a  genuine  currency  can  be 
issued  by  the  Government  upon  an  actual  value  held 
by  it  in  trust,  which  demonstrates  that  a  genuine 
currency  can  be  issued  by  the  GovBrnment  based  on 


LAND    CURRENCY'.  9 

land  security,  land  being  the  most  genuine  of  all  securi- 
ties. 

Therefore,  land  currcnc}^  would  take  precedence 
over  all  monej^s,  for  representing  superior  value  it 
would  necessarily  become  the  superior  medium. 

The  coining  of  land  would  go  to  the  root  of  value  for 
currency  to  measure  outgrowth.  It  would  reach  to 
principal  for  rule.  The  root  of  a  thing  is  the  truth 
of  a  thing.  Therein  lies  the  primal  factor.  We  have 
never  reached  the  truth  of  finance.  We  never  shall 
till  we  coin  land. 

The  coining  of  land  values  would  be  as  great  a 
measure  as  Lincoln's  Bill  of  Emancipation,  that  led  the 
march  of  the  nation's  battalions,  through  its  subtle 
truth,  but  unsheaths  the  silent  ballot.  It  would  be  a 
measure  of  greater  shackle-breaking  power,  of  further 
reaching  enfranchisment.  It  would  cut  to  the  root  of 
chronic  poverty  of  millions,  would  touch  the  founda- 
tion of  business  stagnation,  this  mdustrial  paralysis 
whose  pinching  povert}''  breeds  this  ugly  ulcer,  "  Crime," 
rooted  deep  in  our  insufficient  and  incapable  finance. 

Thus  bad  finance  is  a  source  of  poverty,  as  poverty 
is  a  source  of  crime. 

For  the  Government  to  loan  its  currency  upon 
mortgages  upon  land,  at  two  per  cent  per  annum,  would, 
without  revolution,  but  in  accordance  with  the  peace- 
ful processes  of  evolution,  reverse  the  present  situation. 

The  many  would  hold  the  mortgages  and  interest 
would  accrue  unto  them.  Whereas  now  the  fezv 
hold  the  mortgages  and  interest  accrues  unto  \}[vq  feiv. 
Agriculture  and  manufacture  would  have  to  pay  on 
loans  but  two  per  cent,  whereas  they  now  pay  from  five 
to  ten.     The  interest  thus  saved  would  be  retained  in 


10  LAND    CURRENCY. 

the  channels  of  production  and  strengthen  it.  The 
interest  paid  would  enter  the  channels  of  public  ex- 
penditure and  thus  lessen  or  entirely  abolish  taxation. 
Every  dollar  loaned  by  the  Government  would  de- 
crease the  rate  of  taxation.  And  when  issued  to  the 
present  amount  of  national,  state,  municipal  and 
private  mortgages,  the  interest  would  surely  abolish 
taxation. 

The    agriculturist,    manufacturer  and    builder,   al- 
though paying  the  Government  two  per  cent  per  annum, 
would  discover    that    the  two  per    cent  so    paid    re- 
turned to  them.     Take,  for  example,  a  farmer  laboring 
under  a  mortgage  of  ten  per  cent  usury.     The  ten  per 
cent  he  pays  in  no  way  benefits  him.    It  exceeds  his  in- 
come, drains  him  and  goes  to  swell  another's  power  at 
the  expense  of  his  weakness.     His  increased  poverty 
forces  him  to  sell  his  product  at  the  latter  s  dictation. 
He  cannot  delay  his  sales  a  day,  an  hour,  a  minute.    He 
must  sell  at  cost,  even  below  cost!    Nothing  remains  to 
pay  the  next  year's  ten  per  cent.     A  notice  is  served. 
Then  comes  the  sheriff.     The  profits  of  the  farm  for 
years  have  been  entered  through  interest  as  assets  of  the 
bank,  and  now  through  foreclosure  enters  the  farm 
itself.     But  the  nation  loans  its  currency  upon  land. 
The  scene  changes.     The  farmer  calls  upon  his    Gov- 
ernment for  a  mortgage.     The  rate  is  two  per  cent — 
eight  per  cent  less.      7 his  eight  per  cent  remains  ivitJi 
his  account.     He  now  has  something  to  drive  the  wolf 
from  the  door.    He  is  not  forced  to  sell  through  ruin,  at 
ruin  rates.     The  community   also   have    currency    to 
purchase.     He  finds  purchasers,  makes  a  margin  on  his 
sales.    That  is  added  on  to  the  eight  per  cent  the  Gov- 
ernment mortgage  has  saved  him.     At  the  end  of  the 


LAND    CURRENCY  ll 

year,  instead  of  being  completely  fleeced,  he  has  wealth 
and  plenty.  But  is  this  all  ?  No.  He  goes  to  the 
Court  House  to  pay  his  taxes  and  finds  that  two  per 
cent  on  the  country's  mortgages  more  than  equals  the 
cost  of  Government.  That  he  has  already  paid  his  taxes. 
But  is  this  all?  No.  What  then  else  has  he?  He 
has  his  farm. 

NO    TAX. 

We  will  proceed  to  show  that  currency  loaned  by 
Government  on  land  mortgages  at  two  per  cent  pays 
government  tax.  Also,  that  its  interest  not  only  pays 
tax,  but  saves  the  borrower  several  times  the  amount  of 
tax  by  reduction  of  interest  from  ten  to  two.  Also, 
that  its  interest  after  paying  tax  leaves  a  margin  re- 
maining affording  a  generous  fund  for  additional  public 
improvement. 

In  order  to  simplify  matters  as  much  as  possible  we 
take  California  as  an  example,  and  its  illustration 
applies  to  the  entire  country  The  real  actual  valua- 
tion of  lands  are  not  to  be  had  from  the  reports  of 
officials.  Their  reports  may  afford  a  base  for  estimates, 
however,  upon  which  to  form  a  general  idea. 

One  way  of  estimating  the  values  of  a  state  is  by 
dividing  the  country's  total  wealth  by  its  number  of 
inhabitants,  and  thus  applying  the  result  of  per  capita 
wealth  to  a  state: 

Our  total  national  wealth • $66,000,000,000 

Our  total  population 66,000,000 

Our  per  capita  wealth 1,000 

California    population 1,500,000 

California  wealth 1,500,000,000 

Basing  California's  land  currency  interest  yield  on 
this  calculation,  we  would  have  the  following  result: 


12  LAND    CURRENCY. 

Half  California  values $750,000,000 

Land    currency  rate .02 

Interest  for  currency   15,000,000 

Taxes    paid 1 4,000,000 

More  than  tax 1,000,000 

But  I  hold  that  California  has  a  larger  average 
wealth  and  that  her  per  capita  is  over  $1,000,  and  that 
the  following  estimation  is  nearer  the  mark. 

Taking  our  recorded  and  estimating  our  unrecorded 
debt  thereby,  the  sum  of  both  will  fall  short  of 
$500,000,000  indebtedness. 

This  indebtedness  is  all  directly  or  indirectly  based 
on  land  values,  for  let  crops  fail,  credit  immediately 
responds  and  falls  in  ratio,  revealing  the  fact  that 
land  product  underlies  all  interest  of  every  form.  As 
mortgage  demands  two  of  land  value  to  one  of  debt 
and  about  half  the  land  is  idented,  this  above  $500,- 
000,000  indebtedness  therefore  multiplied  by  four 
gives  us  the  mortgageable  value  of  our  land  on  the 
basis  indicated  by  our  debts  and  presents  the  sum  of 
$2,000,000,000,  and  thus  the  following  table: 

Half  real  amount  of  California  land  values. . .  .$1,000,000,000 
Rate  for  land  currency .02 

Interest  from  land  currency 20,000,000 

California  tax,  1888,  paid 14,000,000 

After  paying  tax $  6,000,000 

But  the  figures  reveal  not  the  full  complete  ad- 
vantage gained.  They  show  that  this  two  per  cent 
on  land  currency  pays  the  burden  of  taxation  and  also 
leaves   a  balance   for  more  superior  public   improve- 


NOTICE    ON    PA(;E     13. 

For  line — Taxes  paid. . $14,000,000 

Read — Interest  received 20,000,000 


LAND  CURRENCY.  13 

ment.  But  it  does  not  show  us  the  something  else 
saved,  by  land  currency,  nor  the  total  amount  gained. 
Let  us  see : 

Interest  of  land   values  at  seven    per   cent   of 

above  sum $70,000,000 

Interest  on  same  at  two  per  cent 20,000,000 

Interest  saved $50,000,000 

Taxed  paid 14,000,000 

*  Total  gain  to  people    $70,000,000 

If  one-half  the  land  value  of  California  was 
mortgaged  for  two  per  cent  at  the  Government  Sub- 
Treasury  or  at  a  bureau  designed  for  the  purpose,  and  the 
Government  received  the  interest  thereof,  all  taxation 
would  cease,  while  interest  itself  would  be  reduced  to  a 
nominal  rate,  allowing  margin  for  projectors  of  indus- 
tries to  successfully  operate.  This  last  item  in  itself 
is  one  of  vast  consequence.  For  the  interest  saved 
would  be  saved  to  individuals  who  actually  employ 
labor,  and  therefore  would  be  so  much  financial 
strength  remaining  with  them,  now  taken  from  them, 
and  leaving  them  in  many  cases  bankrupt,  throwing 
thousands  of  persons  out  of  employment. 

Thus  the  farmer,  builder,  manufacturer  and  pro- 
jector would  be  relieved  of  the  usurious  burden  which 
has  pressed  so  heavily  on  their  margins,  until  nothing 
has  remained  to  them  to  sustain  their  energies.  For 
heavy  interest  crushes  manufacture  and  building  as  it 
crushes  agriculture,  while  plenty  of  money  at  low 
interest  awakes  projection,  employes  industry  and 
leaves  wealth  in  the  hands  of  they  who  produce. 

*  If  the  entire  amount  of  national,  state  and  municipal  interest  on  pub- 
lic mortgages  were  deducted  from  this  tax,  which  would  be  deducted  from 
it  by  land  currency,  the  tax  would  be  reduced  considerably. 


14  LAND    CURRENCY. 

There  are  6,000  takers  and  60,000,000  makers. 
The  takers  now  hold  the  mortgages,  draw  the  interest 
thereof  and  thus  take.  Let  tis  60,000,000  makers 
turn  the  tables  upon  the  takers  and  reverse  the  system. 
Let  us  hold  the  mortgages  and  draiu  the  interest.^ 

Then  we,  the  makers,  will  become  the  takers — the 
takers  of  our  own  product,  for  the  process  by  which 
it  has  been  taken  will  be  reversed.  The  product  will 
flow  toward  us,  where  formerly  it  flowed  from  us  And 
this,  too,  without  the  change  of  a  law,  scarcely  the 
making  of  a  law,  save  a  bureau  where  land  is  coined 
for  currency. 

We  have  been  digging  down  into  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  after  gold  to  get  a  value  to  coin. 

Here  we  have  a  value  beneath  our  feet,  more  val- 
uable far  than  all  the  gold  we  have  ever  dug.  Let  us 
coin  it. 

If  anyone  desires  gold  let  him  dig;  but  for  the  sake 
of  humanity  and  humanity's  progression,  let  us  not  stop 
our  buildings,  farms,  workshops,  and  the  ragged  starve, 
waiting  for  enough  of  this  saffron  gleam  to  give  us  a 
medium  to  work  with.  Let  us  coin  this  that  we  are 
standing  on — Old  Mother  Earth,  herself.  Her  values, 
when  coined,  will  relieve  us  of  taxation,  relieve  us  of 
usury,  and  abolish  their  unjust  takes. 

*Sho'«{ng  that  interest's  exploition  dwarfs  every  other.  We  find  by 
the  Bank  Commissioners'  Semi-Aunual  Statement  of  July  1,  1889,  that  the 
Califoraia  commercial,  saving,  and  private  commercial  banks  have  on 
hand  land  taken  for  debt  amoianting  to  $3,681,387,  which  does  not 
include  the  concealed  foreclosure  of  the  National  Banks,  as  the  column  is 
vacant  We  also  find  the  above  banks  have  loans  amounting  to  the  sum  of 
$169,683,651,  drawing  interest,  which  if  added  to  unrecorded  mortgages 
would  swell  the  sum  to  an  amount  sufficient  in  volume  whose  interest  if 
added  to  state,  county  and  municipal  debt  interest,  would  cover  the  wages 
of  California  Labor. 


LAND    CURRENCY.  15 

THE  FUTURE  AND  PRESENT  MUST  FIT. 

The  "what  is"  and  the  "what  should  be"  are  divided 
by  the  chasm  of  '''howr  To  cross  this  chasm  we  must 
have  a  bridge,  since  we  cannot  fly.  One  end  of  this 
bridge  must  rest  solidly  upon  the  "what  is,"  the  other 
on  the  "  what  should  be."  Because  we  are  opposed, 
and  will  not  accept  the  "  what  is,"  that  is  no  reason 
we  should  not  affix  the  end  of  our  bridge  thereon,  no 
reason  that  we  should  attempt  to  fix  its  end  in  the  air 
or  in  the  skies,  as  most  progressionists  propose,  for 
should  we  so  be  able,  we  could  not  get  up  to  its  posi- 
tion to  pass  into  the  promised  land.  Therefore,  let  us 
observe  that  our  bridge  of  reform  is  so  placed  that  one 
end  of  it  rests  on  the  "  what  is,"  the  other  on  the  "  what 
should  be."  Usury  is,  Justice  should  be.  We  will 
place  our  bridge  therefore,  one  end  resting  on  "Interest," 
the  other  reaching  away  from  it  to  "Justice."  We  are 
then  in  harmony  with  both  present  and  future.  We 
must  recognize  and  respect  the  present.  We  must 
learn  how  to  build  on  it  upwards.  Land  currency  is 
the  only  proposition  that  does  this.  It  upsets  nothing. 
It  silently  melts  the  iceburg  of  lie.  It  is  the  sun! — 
Its  rays  shine  for  all,  for  even  the  usurer  who  would 
be  reft  of  his  usury  would  rise  to  better  and  nobler 
deeds  than  strangling  human  expression  with  his  murder 
tsained  per  cent.  The  increased  wealth  and  happiness 
of  the  human  family  would  be  shared  by  him.  For 
whatever  turns  the  wrong  doer  from  his  task  blesses 
him  greater  that  the  victim  whom  it  saves. 

ALL    REFORMS  IN  IT. 

If   the  trades  unionist  desires  his  idea  here  it  is. 
For  land  currency  would  stimulate  industry  to  the  de- 


]  6  LAND    CURRENCY. 

gree  that  capital  would  be  looking  for  labor,  whereas 
labor  is  now  looking  for  capital.  This  would  shorten 
hours  and  lengthen  pay  until  the  balance  of  right 
would  be  reached.     For  land  currency  is  added  capital. 

If  the  farm  alliance  member  desires  his  idea,  here 
it  is.  For  land  currency  furnishes  him  with  money, 
furnishes  his  buyers  with  money,  saves  him  interest, 
saveshim  from  selling  less  than  cost,  and  saves  his  farm. 

If  the  single  taxist  desires  his  idea,  here  it  is,  here 
all  revenue  rests  on  laud.  Here  is  no  tax.  And  if 
single  tax  is  better  than  double  tax,  here  is,  better  still, 
no  tax  at  all. 

If  the  Greenbacker  wants  his  idea,  here  it  is.  For 
land  currency  is  Government  issue  direct  to  the  peo- 
ple, for  value — the  value  received  is  the  interest  paid. 
And  the  people  who  receive  interest  are  never  ragged, 
starved  or  crashed.  As  the  nation  went  down  paying 
interest,  it  would  rise  receiving  it. 

If  the  Nationalist  desires  his  idea,  here  it  is.  For 
money  is  the  instrument  of  co-operation.  Land  cur- 
rency is  a  co-operative  money. 

In  land  currency  both  nationalist  and  individualist 
find  their  true  idea.  True  nationalism  and  true  indivi- 
dualism are  in  harmony.  Nationalism  is  against  a 
part,  governing  a  whole,  and  individualism  is  agaiast 
a  whole  govering  a  part  therefore  both  are  against 
cohesion  and  both  are  for  co-operation,  and  co-opera- 
tion is  not  government,  but  a  union  of  liberty.  But  such 
a  union  cannot  exist  save  in  inteligence  and  love,  and 
until  then  we  shall  have  government.  Land  currency 
reaches  from  Government  up  to  co-operation,  which  is 
not  Government,  but  union.  So  if  the  individualist 
and  collectivest  seek  a  plane  of  truth  where  seeming 


LAND    CURRENCY.  17 

difference  is  dispelled  and  they  can  move  in  common 
cause,  here  in  land  currency  they  find  it.  For  land 
currency  gives  perfect  freedom  to  individual  action  un- 
trammeled  by  the  whole,  and  gives  perfect  freedom  to 
the  co-operative  or  collective  action  untrammeled  by 
the  part. 

ADVANTAGES. 

As  its  interest  would  flow  to  the  Republic  the  peo- 
ple would  share  its  profits  with  its  borrowers  and 
receive  full  advantage  of  increase  of  currency.  While 
its  borrowers  would  receive  the  benefits  of  low  interest. 

Thus  it  would  benefit  both  public  and  borrowers. 

Its  interest  would  foster  public  improvements, 
erect  public  buildings,  deepen  harbors,  build  our  navy, 
equip  our  service  and  perfect  every  national  depart- 
ment. 

It  would  pay  the  national  debt  and  prevent  the 
creation  of  another.  It  would  relieve  money  strin- 
gency, give  impetus  to  developement,  increase  wages, 
and  shorten  hours.  For  by  increasing  developement 
it  would  increase  demand  for  labor. 

Its  double  circulation  would  double  production. 
Double  production  would  double  export.  Thus  it 
would  draw  through  foreign  sales  a  stream  of  gold  and 
silver  to  our  shore. 

By  furnishing  us  with  sufficient  currency  of  our 
own,  it  would  stop  our  foreign  borrowing  and  bonding, 
and  thus  stop  the  stream  of  gold  and  silver  now  flow- 
ing, in  the  form  of  interest,  from  our  shore.  Thus 
stopping  the  flow  from  us  and  increasing  the  flow  to- 
ward us,  it  would  make  our  treasury  and  our  people 
the  richest  in  the  world. 

It  would  be  issued  directly  to  the  class  who  employ 


18  LAND    CURRENCY, 

and  who  project,  whereas  now  we  issue  currency  to  a 
class  who  employ  not,  project  not,  nor  do  not,  but  pre- 
vent others  from  doing  by  usurious  exactions. 

It  would  encourage  sciences  and  fine  arts.  For 
money  refines  as  poverty  roughens.  Money  is  not  the 
root  of  evil,  but  its  absence  is.  It  is  to  get  money  that 
men  do  evil?  Hereditary  poverty  breeds  hereditary 
crime.  From  the  famished  womb  of  a  nation's  sickly 
want  springs  its  thief,  miser,  glutton  and  usurer. 
Noble  vegetation  rises  from  rich  soil  and  hungry 
creeplings  from  barren  sustenance. 

Disaster  would  not  follow,  nor  panic  collapse  its 
prosperity!  For  it  could  not  depreciate.  Being  based 
upon  security  man}''  times  its  value  the  foundation  of 
its  structure  would  be  broader  than  its  superstructure. 
Thus  builded  as  the  pyramids  that  have  withstood  the 
conflict  of  ages,  it  would  withstand  every  national 
emergency,  every  crisis.  Would  inevitably  become 
the  leading  instrument  of  exchange,  honored  and  re- 
cognized everywhere. 

It  could  not  be  overissued,  as  its  issue  could  not 
get  in  excess  of  the  land  value,  its  base.  The  con- 
tinued prosperity  resultant  of  increased  circulation 
would  enhance  the  value  of  land,  and  therefore  broaden 
the  foundational  value.  Thus  its  base  would  continue 
to  widen. 

A  national  land  currency,  therefore,  contains  a  full 
expression  of  the  remedy  for  the  evils  we  would 
avoid.  With  the  issuance  of  it,  a  new  regime  would 
begin,  a  new  power  infuse  the  nation,  a  freed  force 
would  pulsate  its  veins  with  heat  and  light.  Wealth- 
producing  energies  now  suppressed,  then  liberated, 
would  yield  treasure  unknown  to    industries,  present 


LAND    CURRENCY.  19 

enforced  idleness.  Farmers,  builders,  and  manufactures 
would  avail  themselves  of  its  opportunity,  safe  from 
usury's  foreclosure.  The  Shy  lock  would  depart  from 
our  thoroughfares,  the  pawnbroker  from  our  alleys. 
The  sheriff  would  lay  aside  his  writ  and  furl  his  flag, 
and  the  homes  of  the  citizens  be  safe. 

As  this  currency  entered  the  channel  of  employ- 
ment, mind  and  muscle  would  find  occupation.  The 
chronic  money  stringency  being  removed,  the  cause  of 
depression  would  be  abolished,  leaving  every  avenue 
of  useful  effort  open  to  the  masses. 

INCREASE  AND  DECREASE    OF    MONEY. 

We  cannot  state  the  economy  of  currency  too 
plainly,  or  even  two  minutely.  With  increase  of 
currency  comes  advance  in  prices.  Advances  in 
prices  are  always  to  the  interest  of  debtors,  they  who  are 
in  debt,  they  who  are  the  party  of  the  second  part  in 
the  bond.  Increase  of  currency  therefore  advances  the 
interest  of  this  class,  and  they  form  the  masses. 

But  reverse  this;  decrease  currency,  and  you  have 
opposite  results.  For  decrease  of  currency  results  in 
decrease  of  prices,  and  decrease  of  prices  is  always 
in  the  interest  of  the  creditor  class — they  who  hold  the 
debts,  they  who  are  the  party  of  the  first  part  in  the 
bond,  and  they  are  but  a  small  portion  of  the  many. 
Decrease  of  currency  therefore  advances  the  interest 
of  this  small  class,  and  brings  ruin  and  foreclosure  on 
the  numerous  former,  seizes  their  property,  waves 
the  red  flag  above  their  auctioned  homes  and  scatters 
their  families  upon  the  highway. 

Decrease  currency  and  the  public  cannot  buy. 
The  producer  cannot   sell,  raises   less,  employs  less, 


20  LAND    CURRENCY. 

buys  less,  ships  less  to  market,  railroads  suffer,  and  in 
turn  cease  building  extensions,  build  and  buy  less,  dis- 
charge labor  and  reduce  expenses.  Everywhere  through 
the  ramifications  of  society  the  same  paralysis  strikes. 
For  they  who  cannot  sell  cannot  employ,  and  they 
who  cannot  get  employment  cannot  buy,  and  thus  de- 
crease of  currency  describes  the  circle  of  social  stagna- 
tion called  "  hard  times,"  and  produces  a  degree  of  hard 
times  exactly  the  degree  of  a  currency  decrease. 

NOT    GOLD  OR  SILVER   ENOUGH. 

I  am  no  prophet  of  evil,  nor  alarmist,  nor  one  who 
believes  the  country  on  the  verge.  There  is  too  much 
concentrated  essence  of  evolution  in  the  century  for 
that.  But  I  do  believe,  from  evidence  everywhere, 
from  wretched  homes  and  unseemly  robes,  from 
crowded  penal  institutions  and  rapidly  spreading  vice, 
from  employment's  difficulty,  revealed  to  all  save  those 
who  are  closed  to  revelation — I  do  believe  that  some- 
thing must  be  done.  Something  besides  the  partial 
or  entire  remonetization  of  silver.  For  there  is  not 
silver  enough  to  afford  volume  enough,  whose  stream 
can  be  broad  enough,  upon  which  to  float  the  vast 
bulk  of  our  commodities. 

There  is  neither  gold  nor  silver  enough  for  that. 
We  must  have  an  additional  medium.  And  since  we 
must^  let  that  medium  be  based  on  a  bona  fide  value 
such  as  land  presents. 

Therefore,  for  these  reasons  and  for  others  yet  to 
be  presented  in  these  pages,  let  us  base  our  future 
currency  upon  a  value  ever  broad,  stable  and  secure. 
Let  us  originate  an  American  form  of  finance  and 
establish  an  intelligent  precedent  for  the  world  to 
adopt. 


LAND    CURRENCY.  21 

BUSINESS  INCREASE,  AND  GOLD  AND  SILVER  INCREASE. 

Even  were  the  entire  output  of  silver  coined,  as  it 
should  be,  its  volume  with  that  of  gold  combined 
would  remain  insufficient  to  keep  pace  with  the  volume 
of  business  increasement.  For  as  business  expands 
the  volume  of  currency  must  expand  in  equal  ratio  or 
business  must  contract  back  into  the  limits  of  the 
currency. 

The  world's  gold  output  has  been  rapidly  falling 
since  1870.  The  gold  yield  of  the  United  States  has 
fallen  from  $51,000,000  in  1878  to  $31,000,000  in 
1884.  While  the  silver  yield  of  the  United  States  in 
1888  but  slightly  exceeded  $59,250,000,  thus  showing 
our  total  yield  per  annum  of  both  metals  to  be  but 
$90,250,000. 

While  the  yield  of  our  gold  and  silver  continues  to 
decrease,  the  per  cent  of  our  business  continues  to  en- 
large. And  we  are  actually  confining  that  which 
grows  within  that  which  dies  while  we  make  gold  and 
silver  the  exclusive  value  for  currency  base. 

If  we  confine  the  business  of  the  world  to  gold 
and  silver  as  the  only  base  for  money,  then  the  less  the 
amount  of  these  metals  and  the  larger  the  amount  of 
business,  the  fewer  the  number  of  persons  controlling 
the  business  of  the  world,  and  no  oppression,  no 
tyranny,  no  robbery  can  equal  such  control. 

For  my  business  is  my  expression,  the  expression 
of  my  being.  Control  that^  and  I  cannot  express  my- 
self. I  must  shrink  back  into  inertia — cease  being 
—death! 

We  will  now  proceed  to  compare  our  gold  and 
silver  output  and  its  amount  available  for  coinage  per 
annum : 


22  LAND    CURRENCY. 

Silver $  59,250,000 

Gold 31,000,000 

Both 90,250,000 

Used  in  arts 24,250,000 

For  coinage $  65, 000,000 

When  we  compare  the  above  yearly  amount  possi- 
ble for  coinage  with  the  sum  of  our  yearly  increase  of 
business,  we  can  somewhat  realize  the  disaster  which 
must  result  from  limiting  the  vast  bulk  of  business  in- 
crease to  the  narrow  limits  of  gold  and  silver  increase, 
and  can  somewhat  realize  the  necessity  of  extending  our 
coinage  to  other  values,  especially  that  of  land. 

The  recorded  transactions  of  business  passing 
through  the  clearing  houses  of  the  country,  give 
a  slight  portion  of  the  vast  amount  of  our  com- 
merce, and  that  portion  which  actuall}'  handles  less 
cash  to  its  amount  of  business  than  anv  other,  since  it 
is  the  co-operation  of  banks.  For  other  departments 
have  no  such  co-operation  as  "clearing  houses." 
Agriculture  and  manufacture  partake  but  little  of  the 
system  as  yet.  While  employes,  goods  sellers  and 
thousands  of  other  transactors  have  no  such  financial 
co-operation  whatever,  and  their  transactions  must  be 
dollar  for  dollar  of  cash  and  trade.  Therefore  the 
records  of  the  clearing  houses  present  but  a  small 
margin  of  actual  business  amount.  The  record,  how- 
ever, will  demonstrate  the  increase  of  business  over 
gold  and  silver  increase,  and  prove  the  necessity  of  ex- 
tending the  base  of  our  currency  to  other  value.  We 
give  the  total  clearances  of  1888  and  1889,  and  show 
the  increase  of  the  latter: 


LAND  CURRENCY.  23 

1889,  total  clearances $  56,013,774,893 

1888,  total  clearances 49,497,500,202 

Year's  business  increase 6,516,274,691 

Through  the  co-operative  principle  of  clearing 
houses  the  necessary  actual  cash  amounts  to  but  seven 
per  cent  of  transactions.  But  this  seven  per  cent  of 
transaction  imist  be  present  in  actual  currency  to  its 
full  amount  in  order  to  do  its  ninety-three    of    credit. 

This  seven  per  cent  of  the  amount  of  business  in- 
crease, therefore,  also  gives  us  the  exact  sum  of 
cash  increase  necessary.  It  forms  the  reserve  fund, 
as  it  were,  of  cash  upon  which  its  ninety-three  of 
credit  is  based.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that  this 
much  actual  cash  is  needed  in  this  one  department  of 
transactions  alone;  that  there  are  others  also  needing  a 
certain  per  cent  of  cash  to  per  cent  of  credit;  others 
whose  percentage  of  cash  is  many  times  larger,  but 
whose  transactions  are  unrecorded.  And  therefore, 
to  avoid  estimation,  and  give  only  records,  we  will  but 
present  the  amount  of  the  actual  cash  increase  neces- 
eary  to  business  increase  of  our  clearing  houses 
and  determine  results: 

Business  increase $  6,516,174,691 

Seven  per  cent  needed  cash  increase 456,132,228 

Gold  and  silver  increase 66,000,000, 

Deficit  of  gold  and  silver  increase 390.132,228 

Here  is  gold  and  silver  weighed  in  the  balance  of 
commerce  and  found  wanting.  Their  yield  does  not 
expand  in  ratio  with  business  expansion.  Cash  must 
be  found  somewhere  and  somehow  to  meet  this  busi- 
ness growth.     For  if  the  needed  business  growth  does 


24  LAND    CURRENCY. 

not  meet  its  corresponding  cash  growth,  then  in  propor- 
tion to  the  deficiency  must  the  business  growth  be 
strangled  and  crushed  back. 

We  cannot  meet  this  deficiency  by  the  issurance 
of  paper  redeemable  by  gold  and  silver,  as  such  paper 
merely  repj^esents  the  gold  ajtd  silver  whose  yield  we 
have  given  and  adds  nothing  to  them. 

And  this  most  forcibly  demonstrates  the  necessity 
of  a  land  base.  For  the  metallic  base  ties  the  rapid 
pace  of  our  swelling  trade  to  the  creeping  step  of 
these  metals'  yield,  which,  like  King  Richard's  night, 
"comes  like  an  ugly  witch  limping  slowly  along." 
Then,  shall  we  continue  to  harness  this  steed  "Busi- 
ness," whose  pace  is  seven,  to  this  steed  "Metal,"  whose 
pace  is  one  ?  It  is  easier  to  slow  the  swift  than  haste 
the  slow,  and  for  centuries  the  pace  of  man's  expan- 
sion has  been  slowed  by  this  curb  of  ignorance's  vul- 
gar metallic  superstition — in  fact,  idolatry.  Our 
civilization's  value  has  been  chained  to  the  value  of  our 
gold  and -silver  mines,  doing  no  good  to  gold  or  silver^ 
but  making  hideous  the  faces  of  men.  Break  these 
chains,  extend  civilization  to  more  expansive  values, 
and  civilization  will  expand  to  broader  merits.  The 
earth  pressed  by  our  feet  is  our  natural  base;  let  us 
coin  it. 

But  chis  increase  of  business  may  be  claimed  to  be 
spasmodic;  it  may  be  claimed  that  it  slackens  and  falls 
back  again  to  monotonous  apathy.  That  apathy  is  its 
natural  state.  And  so  it  seems  to  the  majority.  But 
should  our  business  slacken  or  fall  back?  Does  not 
continual  increase  of  population  necessitate  continual 
increase  of  business?  Should  not  increase  of  popula- 
tion and  increase    of   business   continue    in    common 


LAND    CURRENCY.  25 

ratio  ever  side  by  side?  For  if  the  necessary  increase 
of  business  is  checked  and  crushed  back,  must  not  the 
population's  increase  be  also  checked  and  crushed  back? 
Tt  must  be,  as  certain  as  root  must  die  with  up- 
ward growth  destroyed. 

A  currency  which  checks  business  must  therefore 
necessarily  check  population.  For  if  population  in- 
creases and  business  does  not,  then  whatever  per  cent 
of  population  is  devoid  of  occupation,  exactly  that 
per  cent  must  become  vagrant  or  criminal  or  choose 
the  third  alternative,  "  death,"  and  that  too  by  their 
own  hand. 

The  following  clipping  is  to  the  point,  and  indicates 
the  result  of  population  increase  exceeding  business 
increase. 

NOTHING  BUT  MISERY  AHEAD. 

At  524  Eddy  street,  yesterday  morning,  Fredrick  A.  Kilburn  com- 
mitted suicide  by  taking  poison.  He  could  not  get  employment  at 
his  usual  occupation  of  drygoods  clerk,  and  being  without  money  he 
saw  nothing  but  misery  ahead  for  himself,  his  wife  and  his  one-year 
old  baby.  Deceased  was  a  native  of  New  Brunswick,  and  twenty- 
three  years  old. — .S.  F.  Examiner,  July  6,  iSgo. 

Thus  we  have  panics  and  poorhouses,  ruined  homes 
and  flourishing  jails,  farmers  burning  corn  and  colliers 
existmg  on  cobs — mendicants,  malefactors,  suicides  and 
sundown. 

ECONOMY  OF  PANICS. 

It  is  claimed  by  some,  that  we  do  not  need  to  ex- 
pand our  currency  in  ratio  with  business.  They  say 
we  handle  the  same  dollar  over  and  over  again,  that 
our  business  is  chiefly  credit  and  done  on  paper.* 

*The  low  per  cent  of  cash  to  business  of  clearing  houses  in  no  manner 
applies  to  actual  business. 


26  LAND    CURRENCY. 

We  acknowledge  that  our  business  is  chiefly  credit 
and  done  on  paper  and  promise.  That,  in  our  busi- 
ness, a  dollar  z'i- handled  over  and  over  again.  We  will 
show  how  much  credit  and  how  little  cash  we  have 
for  our  credit;  show  how  often  each  dollar  has  to 
be  handled  in  order  to  transact  a  given  amount  of 
business,  and  show  how  much  bankruptcy  we  must  have 
to  a  given  per  cent  of  this  heavy  preponderance  of 
credit: 

Credit  is  simply  the  absence  of  cash.  It  is  to  cash 
what  quicksand  is  to  solidity,  what  chance  is  to  certain- 
ty. The  more  credit,  the  more  quicksand.  The  more 
cash,  the  more  certainty.  Therefore  the  more  the  vol- 
ume of  cash  equals  the  volume  of  business,  the  more 
solvent  the  business;  and  the  more  the  volume  of 
cash  unequals  the  volume  of  business,  the  more  insol- 
vent the  business.  For  if  cash  be  demanded  and  can- 
not be  had,  the  security  is  forced  upon  the  market,  to 
the  debtor's  loss. 

To  all  who  are  open  to  evidence,  truth  is  self- 
evident.  And  it  is  self-evident  that  the  less  the  pro 
rata  of  cash  to  the  pro  rata  of  business,  the  greater 
the  pro  rata  of  bankruptcy,  and  since  the  relations  of 
our  cash  and  our  business  are  as  follows,  we  can  there- 
fore determine  the  pro  rata  of  our  bankruptcy  at  pres- 
ent. Our  volume  of  transactions,  recorded  and  unre- 
corded, and  our  volume  of  money,  stand  thus: 

Total  business,  per  year $  100,000,000,000 

Total  cash  paper  and  metal 2,000,000,000 

Percent  of  cash  insolvency 50,000,000,000 

Therefore  a  dollar  invested   in  business  transacted 
upon  this  basis  has  fifty  chances  of  failure  to  one  of 


LAND  CURRENCY.  27 

success,  since  there  is  a  total  of  fifty  of  credit  to  one  of 
cash. 

Consequently  we  fully  agree  with  those  who  claim 
that  our  business  is  chiefly  done  upon  credit-wholesale 
and  slate-retail,  though  we  recognize  its  disastrous  re- 
sults. 

For  if  fifty  men  have  a  business  each  of    one  dollar 
per  man,  and  there  be  but  one  dollar  cash,  this  needed 
dollar  must  travel  rapidly  from  manto  man  in   order 
to  liquidate  in  ninety  days  the  indebtedness  of  the  fifty. 

Or  if  not,  then  that  portion  of  the  fifty  whose  debts 
it  has  not  canceled  must  fail.  If  the  first  individual 
retains  the  one  dollar  beyond  the  nintey  days,  or  ap- 
propriates the  amount  entirely,  then  the  remaining 
forty-nine  must  enter  insolvency.  This  is  witnessed 
over  and  over  again  in  the  failure  of  a  single  firm, 
drawing  down  after  it  house  after  house  in  the  conta- 
gious ruin  of  fifty  of  business  to  one  of  cash. 

Thus  panics  occur  through  the  deficiency  of  currency 
or  the  dependence  of  many  upon  one.  The  following 
table  will  show  the  ratio  with  which  individual  failure 
must  be  followed  by  community  panic  under  the  pres- 
ent ratio  of  business  and  cash. 


DUAL  FAILURE. 

COMMUNITY  PANIC 

$1 

$49 

$IO 

490 

$IOO 

4900 

$1000 

49,000 

$10,000 

490,000 

$IOC,O0O 

4,900,000 

$1,000,000 

49,000,000 

Thus  if  a  single  firm  fail  for  $1,000,000,  the  wave 
of  failure  it  has  started  must  roll  through  the  com- 
munity, striking  down  rich  and  poor,  from  banker  to 


28  LAND    CURRENCY. 

laborer,  taking  in  palace  and  cottage,  until    it  amounts 
to  its  per  cent  of  one  to  fifty. 

WATERING    GOLD. 

Having  for  years  suffered  the  consequences  of  con- 
fining fifty  dollars  of  business  to  one  dollar  of  metal, 
through  the  repeated  tumbling  down  of  this  financial 
pyramid  actually  set  upside  down,  thus: 

$50     OF    BUSINESS. 


$1     OF    METAL, 

And  not  perceiving  the  common-sense  proj^osition 
of  setting  the  pyramid  right^  by  having  the  base  or 
value  upon  which  our  money  is  issued  wider  than  its 
issue,  thus : 

$1     OF    BUSINESS. 


$50     OF     LAND, 

We  have  come  to  the  conclusion,  since  there  is  not 
enough  of  gold,  to  therefore  allow  a  small  amount  of 
silver  to  be  coined,  so  that  by  slightly  widening  the 
point,  the  pyramid  may  stand,  thus  : 


LAND    CURRENCY  29 

$50    OF    liUrilNESS. 


$1.50  OF  GOLD  AND  SILVER. 

But  how  have  we  concluded  to  widen  the  point  of 
the  pyramid?  One  would  naturally  suppose  we  would 
proceed  to  coin  silver  freely  as  gold,  make  it  full  legal 
tender  as  well  as  gold,  and  thus,  by  adding  its  addi- 
tional value  to  the  point,  somewhat  widen  it,  thus: 

$50     rr     BUSINESS. 


$3  OF  GOLD  AND  SILVER. 

But  no!  Having  learned  that  a  pyramid  will  not 
stand  on  its  point,  we  have  actually  attempted  to 
widen  the  point  by  issuing  a  paper  dollar  redeemable 
by  this  gold  dollar — imagining  that  a  thing  and  its 
shadow  forms  two — that  we  have  thus  two  dollars  to 
balance  our  fifty  of  business. 

Thus,  instead  of  adding  additional  value,  we  have 
believed  that  watering  milk  increases  the  amount  of 
the  original,  and  so  have  proceeded  to  water  gold  with 
paper.  And  though  we  have  certainly  increased  the 
bulk  of  our  currency  by  this  aqua  draft,  or  issuance  of 
paper  currency  to  be    redeemed   by   gold,    we    have 


30  LAND    CURRENCY. 

o-iven  no  additional  value  to  the  base^  and  therefore 
given  no  real  additional  volume  to  the  currency.  Not 
because  the  watering  of  gold  presents  a  paper  instru- 
ment of  exchange,  but  because  its  paper  represents  a 
value  already  represented,  it  represents  a  value  already 
counted,  and  which  therefore  cannot  be  represented 
or  counted  again. 

But  if  we  have  a  paper  currency  that  does  represent 
additional  value,  a  value  not  previously  added,  it  then 
adds  to  the  value  of  the  base  and  thus  really  increases 
the  volume  of  currency.  But  this  ''redeemable  by 
gold,"  this  shadow  or  ghost  money  adds  nothing  what- 
ever to  the  base,  and  representing  merely  a  value 
already  represented,  its  millions  and  billions  of  dollars 
throughout  the  world  are  but  sheer  financial  mirage. 

Having  placed  this  shadow  dollar  along  with  its 
golden  corporeal  redeemer  at  the  point  of  this  re- 
versed pyramid  of  finance,  in  order  to  widen  the  point, 
and  concluding  that  we  have  doubled  the  foundation, 
we  have  proceeded  to  sprout  another  and  another 
dollar  of  the  same  atmospheric  substance  out  of  the 
same  corporeal  one,  until  our  pyramid  actually  stands 
upon  more  shadows  than  dollars,  and  we  have  more 
promises  than  we  have  dollars  to  pay. 

These  promisorial  ghosts  we  have  proceeded  to  loan 
to  industry,  thus  equaling  a  landlord  who  not  only 
charges  rent  for  his  house,  but  rent  for  its  shadow  and 
rent  for  its  various  variations  of  shadows.  Money- 
less "business"  fondly  imagines  it  has  dollars  in  the 
possession  of  these  shadows.  But  lo!  when  two 
holders  of  this  stuff  simultaneously  claim  redemption, 
when  two  make  two  demands  for  the  corporeal  "one," 
it  can   redeem   but  one,  and   the    remaining   financial 


LAND    CURRENCY.  31 

prestidigitator  beholds  his  mirage  fade.  They  call 
this  "  panic,"  "Black  Friday;"  but  whatever  its  name, 
its  deadly  dance  is  fringed  with  coffins,  jails  and  in- 
sane asylums.  Its  pall  is  cast  over  whole  communities, 
its  crack  of  suicide-pistol  is  heard,  its  tears  replace 
smiles,  its  famine  takes  the  place  of  plenty !  Yet,  not 
knowing  that  Land  can  be  coined  as  well  as  Metal,  the 
world  continues  to  float  its  precious  commerce  upon 
this  deadly  sea. 

Europe's  shadow  money. 

Currency  can  only  be  actually  increased  by  the 
coinage  of  actual  value.  Value  may  be  coined  directly 
or  indirectly.  Metals  may  be  coined  by  stamps  upon 
them,  or  the  stamping  of  paper  issued  upon  them.  So 
land  may  be  coined  also  by  the  stamping  of  paper 
issued  upon  it.  If  the  value  upon  which  the  paper  is 
issued  be  held  by  the  Government,  then  every  dollar 
of  such  currency  issued  under  such  conditions  is  actual 
money,  since  every  dollar  of  such  currency  adds  a 
dollar's  actual  value  to  the  base.  But  another  dollar 
issued  upon  this  same  value  already  issued,  adds  noth- 
ing to  the  base,  and  therefore  adds  nothing  to  the 
currency. 

Yet  the  cunning  proprietors  of  the  gold  base  hold 
to  the  contrary.  They  hold  that  a  paper  promise  to 
pay  a  gold  dollar,  not  only  adds  to  the  circulation, 
but  that  several  of  their  promises  to  pay  the  same  gold 
dollar  adds  to  the  gold  dollar  as  often  as  the  promises 
are  multiplied.  To  illustrate  this  promisorial  pneu- 
matical,  paperial  watering  of  metal,  this  addition  with- 
out addition,  this  counting  a  thing  and  its  shadow, 
this  drawing  interest  upon  worthless  paper,  we  will  cite 
the  following  graphic  examples,  which  fully  illustrate 


32  LAND    CURRENCY. 

the  superiority  of    land  as  a  base  for  currency,  as  it 
presents  a  double  value  behind  every  dollar  issued: 

BANK    OF    SPAIN. 

Redeemable  paper  currency $  140,000,000 

Coin  reserve  to  redeem  it 38,000,000 

Worthless $   102,000,000 

BANK    OF    RUSSIA. 

Redeemable  paper  currency $  510,000,000 

Coin  reserve  to  redeem  it 165,000,000 

Woithless $  345,000,000 

AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN     BANKS. 

Redeemable   paper  currency $  229  910,000 

Coin  reserve  to  redeem  it 107,350,000 

Worthless $   122,560,000 

ITALIAN     BANKS. 

Redeemable   paper  currency $  251,380,000 

Coin  reserve  to  redeem  it 36,000,000 

Worthless $  215,380,000 

BANK    OF    ENGLAND. 

Paper  to  be  redeemed  by  gold $  175,000,000 

Gold  reserve  to  redeem  it 100,000,000 

Worthless $75,000,000 

But  this  over-watering  gold  and  silver  is  a  danger- 
ous game  to  the  people  whose  industry  is  run  upon  it 
For  if  two  men,  Rothschild  and  Seligman.  were  to  de- 
mand redemption  of  the  paper  they  hold  it  would  stop 
Europe's  spindles,  extinguish  its  furnace  fires,  close  its 
shipyards  and  hold  the  bread  from  the  mouths  of 
millions. 

In  fact,  when  we  sum  up  not  only  the  instances  we 
have  cited  but  the  entire  banking  system  of  Europe. 


LAND    CURRENCY.  33 

we  find  it  run  upon  irredeemable  promise,  having  no 
security  and  depending  merely  upon  confidence.  The 
following  is  its  total  coin  reserve  and  paper  issue : 

Total  paper  issue  of  Europe $2,665,345,000 

Total  coin  reserve  to  redeem  it ^>336,383,o99 

Worthless $1,328,962,000 

About  two  of  promise  to  one  of  pay.  This  startling 
arrangement  of  facts,  collected  from  the  banks  them- 
selves, proves  the  entire  rotteness  and  bankruptcy  of 
European  finance.  Proves  the  absurdity  of  sprouting 
one  form  of  money  out  of  another.  Proves  the  in- 
sufficiency of  the  metal  as  a  base  Proves  that  we 
must  broaden  the  base  of  our  currency  by  the  addition 
of  land  value  and  thereby  place  two  dollars  of  real 
value  behind  every  dollar  issued,  in  the  place  of  empt}^ 
shadow. 

Thus  the  gold  base  for  currency  necessitates  the 
issuance  of  paper  representing  an  amount  many  times 
its  base  in  order  to  expand  sufficient  for  business, 
while  a  land  base  for  currency  issues  paper  to  but 
fifty  per  cent  of  the  value,  and  expands  to  necessary 
volume  upon  the  same  solvent  ratio. 

But  the  evils  of  a  gold  base  lie  even  deeper  than 
its  compulsory  over-issue.  It  cannot  expand  in  ratio 
to  population  or  business,  unless  it  expands  on  a  worth- 
less, irredeemable,  shadow  currency. 

OUR  NATIONAL  BANK  SYSTEM. 

To  further  demonstrate  the  virtue  of  coining  land, 
we  will  now  compare  it  with  the  coining  of  bonds,  or 
the  loaning  of  Government  currency  upon  national 
debts,  which  currency  presents  an  array  of  startling, 
if  not  ludicrous,  facts. 


34  LAND    CURRENCY. 

As  I  write,  the  report  of  the  honorable  Secretary 
of  the  National  Treasury  lays  before  me.  It  contains 
some  choice  reading,  and  some  very  interesting  infor- 
mation. 

On  page    12,  the    Secretary  informs  us  that   the 

Government,    during   the   year,  loaned  the    National 

Thanks 

THE  SUM  OF  $235,217,283. 

in  currency  known  as  National  Barjk  notes.  The  ques- 
tion arises  to  the  most  uninquiring  mind:  What  did 
the  Government  receive  for  the  loan  of  this  currency?" 
The  reply  to  this  question  is  found  on  page  8  of  the 
same  document,  wherein  the  Secretary  again  informs 
us  that  he  received  from  the  banks  for  the  loan  of  this 

currency 

THE  SUM  OF  $1,500,000 

— a  trifle  over  one-half  per  cent  per  annum. 

When  we  come  to  examine  the  transaction  further, 
we  find  that  the  banks  borrowed  this  currency  from 
the  people  to  again  reloan  it  to  them.  And  we  are 
faced  with  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of  a  people  who 
loan  their  currency  to  a  bank  at  one-half  per  cent,  in 
order  to  borrow  it  back  at  ten. 

Why  not  have  given  the  banks  nme  and  a  half  per 
cent  directly,  without  all  this  circumlocutionary,  side- 
ways, left-handed  double  contortion  ? 

We  certainly,  as  well  as  Europe,  have  a  wonderful 
and  profoundly  made  system  of  currency. 

As  the  banks  loaned  this  currency*  mostly  to  the 

*  The  National  Banks  are  not  allowed  by  law  to  loan  on  land  mortagage, 
but  they  skillfully  keep  within  the  law  by  loaning  on  notes,  secured  by 
land  mortagage.  In  their  reports,  the  column  headed  "  Loans  on  Real 
Estate"  is  blank,  Lading  the  uninitiated  to  suppose  them  innocent.     Their 


LAND    CURRENCY.  35 

farming   community  at   ten   per   cent,   they  recjeived 
therefore  in 

INTEREST   THAT  YEAR  $23,521,728. 

And  when  we  deduct  from  that  the  one-half  per  cent 
the  banks  paid  to  the  Government,  we  have  the  follow- 
ing table: 

The  banks  received  in  interest  from  the  people $23,521,728 

The  banks  paid  interest  to  the  people 1,500,000 

Banks  made  by  borrowing  at  Y^,  and  loaning  back 

at  10  per  cent $22,021,728 

Thus  it  cost  the  people  in  1888  twenty-two  millions 
for  the  financial  joke  of  loaning  money  in  order  to  bor- 
row it  back  again.  But  the  point  of  the  joke  can  only 
be  found  in  the  pockets  of  the  bankers. 

We  will  not  give  details  what  these  banks  made  by 
this  ridiculous  arrangement  from  its  inception  up  to 
the  present,  and  we  merely  but  cite  this  instance  in 
order  to  photograph  the  system  and  present  its  inferi- 
ority to  the  issuance  of  currency  upon  land. 

One  more  point  in  regard  to  National  Banks.  Their 
currency  is  loaned  by  the  Government  upon  the  secur- 
ity of  bonds  deposited  with  the  Treasurer.  Can  any 
one  inform  the  author  how  a  bond  is  better  security 
than  land  ?  Surely,  if  we  can  loan  money  on  bonds,  we 
can  upon  lands. 

The  advantages  of  a  land  currency  over  this  system 
of  finance,  known  as  National  Bank  currency,  is  there- 
fore plain.  The  National  Banks  are  simply  middlemen, 
through  which  the  currency  passes  from  the  Govern- 

National  Eeport  of  1888  shows  their  total  profit  for  that  year  $46,000,000, 
which  amount  would  be  saved  by  land  currency,  reducing  our  interest  per 
year  to  that  amount  in  this  single  item  alone. 


36  LAND    CURRENCY. 

ment  to  the  people.  Land  currency  would  pass  directly 
from  the  Government  to  the  people,  thereby  removing 
the  middleman  and  his  enormous  profits. 

As  the  national  bonds  are  paid,  the  currency  loaned 
upon  them  decreases,  and  this  decrease  decreases  the 
volume  of  money.  This  decrease  must  be  substituted 
by  some  other  form  of  currency,  in  order  to  equal  the 
deficit  and  prevent  its  direful  results. 

THE    TURNING    POINT. 

And  here  comes  the  turning  point  in  our  history. 
Shall  we  repeat  the  follies  we  have  set  forth,  or  shall 
we  rise  equal  to  the  necessity  of  the  age  ?  Shall  we 
exercise  a  gleam  of  common  sense  and  adopt  a  rational, 
genuine  currency,  honest,  sound  and  solvent  ?  If  we 
do,  then  to  the  complexion  of  land  currency  must  we 
come.     If  not,  then  mothers 

"  WEEP   FOR    YOUR    CHILDREN." 

For  there  shall  be  storms  ahead  darker  than  ye  have 
yet  witnessed.  For  no  civilization  can  prosper  and 
thrive  on  this  progress-curbing,  liberty-crushing,  pov- 
erty-spreading, crime-creating  European  system,  now 
grinding  the  masses  of  Europe,  and  beneath  which 
America  now  lies  low  in  the  grasp  of  a  foreign  usury. 
No  proposition  more  far-reaching  in  effect,  more  oppor- 
tune to  occasion,  more  completely  in  order  with  con- 
ditions, was  ever  presented  for  consideration.  May 
they  whose  souls  contain  the  patriot's  spark  help  it 
forward. 

LAND  CURRENCY  REDEMPTION. 

As  land  is  its  security,  land  redeems  land  currency. 
The  process  of  its  redemption  is  simple  as  the  currency 


LAND    CURRENCY.  37 

is  sound.  Being  issued  upon  mortgage,  its  redemption 
merely  consists  in  a  return  to  the  treasury  of  the 
amount  loaned,  upon  which  the  interest  ceases,  the 
mortgage  is  canceled  and  the  currency  redeemed. 
"When  we  compare  this  simple  process  of  redemption  to 
that  of  other  forms  of  redeemable  currency,  the  advan- 
tages gained  and  dangers  surmounted  are  not  to  be 
overlooked.  For  a  currency  to  be  redeemed  by  gold 
must  end  in  disaster.  If  we  cannot  get  the  gold  from 
circulation  to  redeem  the  paper,  there  is  bankruptcy; 
and  if  we  can  and  do  redeem  the  paper,  then  the  gold 
drawn  from  circulation  produces  stringency  and  panic. 
So  we  have  bankruptcy  either  way.  But,  with  redemp- 
tion of  land  currency,  the  land  would  be  always  pres- 
ent to  redeem,  and  as  amounts  of  the  currency  would 
be  redeemed,  other  amounts  would  be  issued,  and  the 
full  volume  of  money  thus  continuously  preserved. 

WOULD    INCREASE    LAND    AND    OTHER    VALUES. 

Investors  should  all  be  in  favor  of  land  currency — 

First.  Because  it  raises  the  value  of  every  value. 
The  coining  of  any  value  raises  price,  as  it  gives  all 
wealth  additional  use.  The  extension  of  silver  coinage 
this  year  has  increased  silver  value  20  per  cent  by  in- 
creasing its  use  20  per  cent,  and  will  also  increase  all 
other  values. 

Second.  Because  it  lowers  interest  upon  loans 
from  six  and  ten  to  two  per  cent,  leaving  from  four  to 
eight  per  cent  margin  for  profit. 

Third.     Because  its  interest  cancels  taxation. 

Fourth.  Because  we  can  embark  upon  its  mort- 
gage system  safely  and  profitably,  without  danger  of 
foreclosure. 


272281 


38  LAND    CURRENCY. 

Fifth.  Because  we  have  a  thriving  community  to 
invest  upon,  with  plenty  of  genuine  money. 

REAL     AMERICAN    INDEPENDENCE. 

England  is  said  to  be,  and  is,  the  greatest  maritime 
nation  in  the  world.  The  United  States  ought  to  be. 
Why  is  England  this,  and  why  is  the  United  States  not? 
Because  the  former  has  been  the  financier  and  the  lat- 
ter the  pruducer.  America,  with  her  vast  resources, 
has  toiled.  England,  with  her  vast  bank,  has  loaned. 
America  has  been  attending  to  labor;  England  has  been 
attending  to  money — money  controls  labor,  therefore 
England  controls  America.  When  America  turns  her 
attention  to  money,  and  her  statesmen  understand  it  as 
the  statesmen  of  the  Old  World,  then  America  will  not 
look  to  England  for  finance,  but  will  control  her  own 
wealth. 

I  am  not  opposed  to  England,  but  I  am  opposed  to 
her  Imperial  form  of  Government  running  the  Repub- 
lics of  America.  I  am  for  a  Republican  form  of  money. 
I  am  opposed  to  Republican  industry  falling  under  the 
power  of  Monarchical  capital.  Here  is  a  specimen 
straw  from  the  press: 

An  English  syndicate  has  purchased  the  Port  B'akeley  lumber 
mill  in  Washington  for  $2,400,000. — Los  Angeles  Express. 

Here  is  another  straw: 

The  principal  American  shipyards  are  being  negotiated  for  by 
a  London  agent. — N.  V.  Herald. 

Another  straw  : 

Thirty-three  crystal  glassworks  are  purchased  by  London  capi- 
tal.—  Morning   Call. 

Here  is  another  straw  : 


LAND    CURRENCY.  39 

Arrangements  bave  been  closed  for  the  purchase  of  the  leading 
Chicago,  St.  Louis  and  San  Francisco  breweries  by  an  Enj^lish  syndi- 
cate.— S.  F.   Chronicle. 

With  land  currency,  America  would  not  have  to 
sell  her  industries  to  foreign  capitalists. 

Behind  Eno;lish  progression,  behind  her  shipping, 
behind  her  "  Warspites"  and  her  guns,  lies  coiled  the 
mainspring  of  all  her  power — her  great  Bank  of  the 
World.  That  is  the  source  of  her  wealth,  the  secret  of 
her  power.  This  bank  is  no  part  of  the  English  people, 
but  is  situated  among  them,  and  fleeces  them  as  closely 
as  South  American  and  North  American  peoples.  It  is 
the  financial  spider  of  the  world,  into  whose  huge  web 
of  mortgage  the  nations  of  the  earth  get  entangled,  and 
are  sucked  of  their  blood.  If  the  victims  struggle  or 
resist  the  payment  of  her  bonds,  then  her  devil- 
ish stings  are  set  at  play,  and  shot  and  shell  vomit 
murder  upon  their  cities.  Her  ironclads  are  always 
ready  to  enforce  her  rights  (bonds). 

As  an  illustration  of  how  this  mortgage  devilfish 
of  London  works,  we  clip  the  following  from  the  press 
of  August  1,  1890  : 

THE     ARGENTINE      REPUBLIC    A    RUIN ANARCHY    REIGNING BLOODY 

CONFLICT    RAGING    THROUGH      THE    COUNTRY — THE     ENOR- 
MOUS   LOANS    FLOATED    ON    THE    LONDON    MARKET. 

'*The  present  unhappy  state  of  affairs  in  the  Argentine  Republic," 
said  a  well-informed  banker  yesterday,  "is  the  natural  result  of  try- 
ing to  boom  a  country  on  borrowed  money,  and  a  desire  to  discount 
the  future  material  prosperity  of  a  country  undeniably  rich  in  unde- 
veloped resources.  You  know  how  it  is  with  a  borrower,  whether  a 
nation  or  an  individual — it  dulls  the  edge  of  husbandry  as  much 
in  one  case  as  it  does  in  the  other. 

"  Of  course  we  know  that  the  immediate  cause  of  the  crash  was  the 
failure  of  the  National  Banks  to  pay  the  regular  quarterly  dividends. 
That  was  merely  the  result  of  all  I  have  been  telling  you.     The  load 


40  LAND    CURRENCY. 

had  become  too  great  to  bear,  and  something  had  to  give  way.     What 
the  outcome  will  be  remains  to  be  seen. 

"We  know  what  kind  of  a  creditor  England  is.  She  generally 
sees  to  it  that  her  citizens  get  principal  and  interest,  even  if  it  re- 
quires a  few  steelclad  '  VVarspites '  to  sail  into  the  harbors  of  the 
debtor  country,  just  as  a  reminder. 

THE    ENORMOUS    INDEBTEDNESS. 

I  saw  a  statement  in  the  Examiner' s  dispatch  to  the  effect  that 
the  state  national  debt  amounts  to  $336,341,442,  while  the  provinces 
and  city  of  Buenos  Ayres  owe  in  addition  $213,683,252  and  $24,- 
044,752,  respectively,  making  a  total  indebtedness  of  $574,069,446. 

"  That  is  an  enormous  sum  of  money  for  a  country  to  owe,  with  only 
a  population  of  six  millions  and  a  quarter.  Nearly  $100  per  capita 
you  see.  Our  own  public  debt  is  only  about  $15  per  capita,  and  we 
think  it  no  trifling  matter  to  owe  in  the  neighborhood  of  $7 89, 000,000- 

"Then  you  must  recollect  that  this  debt  bears  a  much  higher  rate 
of  interest,  averaging  about  6  per  cent,  and  the  bonds,  or  cedulas, 
as  they  are  called,  which  are  in  series  beginning  with  A  and  going 
nearly  through  the  alphabet,  range  all  the  way  from  75  to  85  cents 
on  the  dollar. 

"  The  premium  on  gold  has  mounted  higher  and  higher,  until  it 
reached  233,  as  you  will  see  by  glancing  at  this  paper  published  at 
Buenos  Ayres  on  the  21st  of  last  month." — Exa?niner,  August  t^, 
1890. 

Thus  the  world  works  and  England  mortgages.  She 
is  the  pawnbroker,  the  Shylock  of  Nations,  unto  whom 
the  people  pledge  their  energies  and  wealth.  America 
boasts  of  a  certain  "Declaration  of  Independence"  of 
1776.  We  rebelled  then,  because  of  a  certain  tax  on 
tea.  My  countrymen,  you  may  bray  your  bands,  beat 
your  drums,  and  flaunt  your  flags,  but  if  you  make  less 
noise  and  think  more,  you  will  realize  the  patriotic 
duty  you  owe,  you  will  realize  that  the  real  indepen- 
dence of  your  country  from  G-reat  Britain  has  yet  to 
be  declared. 

[If  the  people  of  the  Argentine  Republic  and  of  every  other  Re- 


LAND    CURRENCY.  41 

public  would  establish  a  Republican  form  of  finance,  such  as  the 
issuance  of  land  currency,  they  would  not  have  to  negotiate  foreign 
loans  in  monarchical  banks;  foreign  monarchies  would  not  and  could 
not  exploit  them.  And  I  hope  this  work  may  fall  mto  the  hands  of 
some  of  the  many  patriots  of  our  sister  Republics,  that  their  people 
may  read,  appreciate  and  adopt  this  finance  of  liberty.] 

WHAT  WOULD  STOP  AN  OVER-ISSUE. 

Over-issue  of  land  currency  would  be  prevented 
by  precisely  the  same  circumstances  now  preventing 
wholesale  and  unlimited  borrowing.  For  instance, 
why  is  it  that  persons  who  have  security,  do  not  im- 
mediately borrow  the  entire  funds  of  our  banks?  Be- 
cause it  would  not  pay.  Because  interest  is  in  the 
way.  Because  the  relation  of  interest  to  profit  governs 
loans,  and  the  borrower's  profit  must  include  and  ex- 
ceed the  interest  on  the  loans,  or  the  borrowing  is 
checked.  This  prevents  wholesale  and  unlimited 
borrowing,  and  this  would  apply  to  land  currency  at 
two  per  cent  exactly  as  it  now  applies  to  any  form  of 
currency  at  any  per  cent. 

The  increase  of  population  presents  an  increase  of 
business,  and  an  increase  of  business  presents  an  in- 
crease of  profit.  As  profit  must  exist  before  interest,  since 
profit  pays  interest,  therefore  population  must  increase 
for  business  to  increase  before  loans  can  increase  and 
their  increased  interest  be  paid.  Therefore  the  in- 
crease or  decrease  of  population  is  the  increase  or  de- 
crease of  loans.  All  profit  must  come  from  population. 
Population  thus  fixedly  limits  the  increase  of  interest. 
Interest  cannot  go  beyond  population's  profit,  and  there- 
fore land  currency  cannot  be  over-issued,  for  the  in- 
terest of  its  loans  cannot  exceed  the  capability  of  its 
population  to  pay.     The  moment  the  interest  of   land 


42  LAND    CURRENCY. 

currency  loans  exceeds  the  business  profit  of  the  com- 
munity, further  loans  become  unprofitable,  therefore 
cease.  Thus  land  currency  would  be  fixedly  ruled  by 
the  natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  and  could  not 
be  over  issued. 

[Therefore  it  would  be  as  ridiculous  to  limit  the  loans  of  Land 
Currency  as  it  would  to  limit  the  loans  of  our  present  banks. 
While  there  is  possibility  of  profit  the  loans  of  our  banks 
continue.  When  the  profit  of  the  loans  ceases,  the  loans  them- 
selves cease  correspondingly.  Why?  Because  interest  must  be 
paid  by  profits.  It  does  not  pay  to  build  houses  beyond  the 
community  necessity,  or  carry  on  manufacture  or  enterprise  of  any 
kind,  even  if  you  get  the  money  at  one-half  per  cent  or  at  any  fraction 
thereof.  For,  however  small,  the  interest  must  be  paid  or  the 
security  be  forfeited.  Hence  land  currency  need  have  no  artificial 
limit,  since  the  profit  of  business  is  its  lata',  to  which  it  flows,  with 
which  in  corresponding  volume  it  continues  to  flow,  and  beyond 
whose  limit  it  cannot  go.] 

RELATIONS     OF    INTEREST     AND     PROFIT. 

Thus  population's  necessity  and  the  pro  rata  in- 
crease of   population  would  automatically  issue    land 

currency,  and  its  volume  could  not  pass  beyond  popu- 
lation's need. 

Loans  at  present  never  do  pass  beyond  the  pro  rata 
increase  of  population.  Nor  can  they  even  keep  pace 
with  its  pro  rata  increase,  which  they  certainly  should 
do.  For  the  reason  that  our  present  moneys  are  based 
upon  metals,  and  the  values  of  the  metals  are  not  ex- 
pandable in  ratio  with  population.  The  values  of 
metallic  currencies  are  not  broad  enough. 

The  gold  and  silver  yield  does  not  increase  in  ratio 
with  population,  therefore  checks  its  loans  and  checks 
its  business.  The  increase  of  gold  and  silver  curren- 
cies drags  behind  our  increase  of  business,  continually 


LAND    CURRENCY.  43 

forcing  interest  ahead  of  profit,  when  its  natural  posi- 
tion is  behind,  thus  steadily  strangling  business — busi- 
ness must  necessarily  fall  behind,  and  far  behind,  the 
volume  of  population,  throwing  millions  out  of  em- 
ployment. And  since  life  will  battle  for  the  right  to 
exist,  the  pro  rata  you  deny  will  be  the  pro  rata  of 
your  crime. 

The  very  reverse  of  this  should  be  the  rule  if  we 
wish  our  business  to  expand  pro  rata  with  population, 
and  afford  all  an  opportunity  for  legitimate  occupation. 
Business  profit  should  always  be  ahead  of,  and  in  ex- 
cess of,  interest,  and  nothing  should  reverse  this  rule, 
save  when  business,  becoming  sufficient  for  population, 
itself  reverses  it,  but  only  to  again  restore  it  when  pop- 
ulation's increase  demands  additional  loans  for  addi- 
tional business,  to  give  additional  employment. 

Population,  business  and  money  should  all  conform 
in  increasements.  If  population  expands  a  given  per 
cent,  then  business  should  be  allowed  to  expand  ac- 
cordingly, and  can  be  allowed  by  the  inauguration  of 
a  form  of  money  affording  a  sufficiency  of  base  to  ex- 
pand, corresponding  with  population.  The  interest  of 
such  a  money  would  consequently  not  be  in  advance 
of  profit,  but  be  behind.  Its  loans  would  steadily 
continue  in  volume  with  business  increase,  presenting 
exactly  a  sufficiency  of  money  for  a  sufficiency  of  busi- 
ness, to  employ  the  increase  of  population  ;  but  beyond 
which  increase,  as  we  have  shown,  it  could  not  pass. 

AMOUNTS     OF     EXPANSION. 

The  profits  of  a  business  are  its  growth.  As  its  pro- 
fits are  subtracted,  its  growth  is  subtracted.  Inter- 
est subtracts   from  business  profit,  and  the  amount  of 


44  LAND    CURRENCY. 

interest  is  the  amount  of  the  suppression  of  business 
growth.  Ten  per  cent  interest  reduces  the  natural 
growth  of  a  business  ten  per  cent,  as  certain  as  ten 
from  one  hundred  leaves  ninety.  If  land  currency 
charged  "business"  a  per  cent  interest,  and  did  not 
cancel  taxation  to  that  per  cent,  thus  practically  re- 
turning the  per  cent  it  took,  then  land  currency 
would  retard  the  growth  of  business  exactly  that  per 
cent,  or  to  whatever  rate  its  interest  charged.  But  as 
land  currency's  "two  per  cent"  is  not  a  subtraction, 
but  merely  a  transaction,  it  leaves  business  therefore 
shorn  of  no  w^ealth,  strength  or  growth. 

Therefore  to  reduce  interest  is  to  enlarge  business, 
or  to  allow  it  its  natural  growth.  Hence,  if  under 
seven  per  cent  our  "  clearing  houses"  show  a  business 
of  164,000,000,000,  then  under  the  practical  or  actual 
"no  per  cent"  of  land  currency  the  seven  per  cent 
now  subtracted  from  business  would  be  retained,  and 
our  present  growth  of  business  would  be  to  that  ex- 
tent enlarged.  Seven  per  cent  of  the  above  sum  would 
give  us  $4,480,000,000,  the  amount  which  the  seven 
per  cent  money  toll  now  takes  from  our  merchants, 
manufacturers,  farmers  and  producers,  and  the  amount 
to  which  in  twelve  months  therefore  our  business  and 
our  wealth*  would  immediately  expand  under  land 
currency. 

*I  have  above  remarked  that  our  business  and  our  wealth  would,  etc.;  I 
do  not  use  these  two  words  in  connection  meaniuglessly,  for  I  discover  that 
the  exact  figure  of  the  one  is  the  exact  figure  of  the  other;  that  if  our  wealth 
is  $66,000,000,000,  that  the  business  of  our  clearing  houses  is  $66,000,000,- 
000,  and  more  significant  still,  I  find  that  the  census  report  of  our  popula- 
tion is  also  $66,000,000,  or  exactly  $1,000  per  wealth,  per  business,  per 
population.  So  the  amounts  of  business  and  wealth  are  both  in  ratio  to 
population,  China  has  but  $100  per  capita  wealth.  I  wish  to  see  my 
country  have  $20,000  of  wealth  and  business  per  capita,  and  that  distributed 


LAND    CURRENCY.  45 

We  have  an  army  of  1,000,000  forced  into  idleness 
by  scarcity  of  money  raising  interest  above  profit. 
This  entire  army  would  enter  employment  if  money 
was  plenty,  and  interest  less  than  profit — if  investment 
could  make  a  margin.  If  this  army  was  employed  it 
would  add  at  least  its  $1,000  per  capita  to  our  wealth, 
expanding  our  wealth  $1,000,000,000.  Whereas  now 
we  annually  waste  millions  attempting  to  suppress  life, 
because  it  attempts  to  take,  outside  of  the  law,  that 
which  we  have  stopped  it  from  creating,  inside  of  the 
law,  by  stupidity,  by  putting  an  unexpandable  collar 
of  gold  around  the  growing  throat  of  our  young 
civilization. 

The  expansion  of  our  currency  to  its  supply  and 
demand  volume,  the  reduction  of  interest  from  ten  to 
two,  and  the  abolition  of  tax  payment,  would  expand 
the  volume  of  our  wealth,  from  careful  examination  of 
the  premises,  ten  times.  Our  total  wealth,  therefore, 
now  $64,000,000,000,  would  expand  to  $640,000,000,- 
000,  and  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  United 
States  would  be  ten-fold  richer  than  to-da}'-.  In  fact, 
the  world  itself  from  pole  to  pole  would  be  benefited 
thereby,  for  good  is  contagious.  Our  poor  little  pale- 
face children  of  poverty  would  be  fed,  clothed  and 
happy ;  our  desperate  criminal  element  would  turn  to 
the  love  extended  to  them;  our  jails,  our  mad-houses 
and  our  bad-houses  would  be  few  indeed,  for  all  that 
poor  humanity  wants  is  a  chance  to  be  good.  Let  us 
give  it  that  chance. 

less  in  lumps  than  now.  And  I  present  a  plan  to  do  it,  simple,  plain  and 
practicable — a  plan  that  I  have  yet  to  see  a  person  who  cannot  perceive  its 
Bimplicity,  who  has  the  love  of  country  enough  at  heart  to  examine — and 
certainly  we  all  have  that. 


46  LAND    CURRENCY. 

HOW  MORE  MONEY  \VOULD  BENEFIT  US. 

What  would  expand  our  wealth  merely  by  the 
issuance  of  more  money?  How  would  it  expand? 
How  can  or  does  more  money  increase  wealth?  Is 
money  wealth?  No!  money  is  not  wealth,  but  the 
co-operative  instrument  by  which  human  energy  is 
allied,  united,  arranged  and  concerted  to  produce 
wealth,  also  to  distribute  wealth. 

It  is  therefore  both  instrument  of  production  and 
distribution.  And  exactly  as  it  is  lessened  in  vol- 
ume, exactly  are  the  people  unemployed,  and  exactly 
as  the  people  are  unemployed,  exactly  is  the  volume 
of  wealth  lessened,  and  exactly  as  the  volume  of  wealth 
is  lessened,  then  exactly  is  lessened  that  portion  of  wealth 
which,  if  produced,  the  people  would  have  enjoyed. 
Thus,  if  money  is  scarce,  many  are  idle,  and  wages  are 
low;  if  many  are  idle,  wealth  is  scarce,  and  living  is 
high.  So  that  the  scarcity  of  money  lowers  wages 
and  raises  cost  of  living,  since  that  which  lessens  the 
employment  of  men  must  necessarily  lessen  the  pro? 
duction  of  that  which  supports  them.  Let  us  examine 
this  closely.  We  have  said  that  if  money  is  scarce  in- 
terest is  relatively  high — that  profit  pays  interest.  If 
profit  pays  interest,  the  higher  the  interest  the  less  the 
profit,  and  if  money  be  scarce  enough,  the  interest  will 
be  high  enough  to  allow  profit  nothing  after  paying 
interest.  If  no  profit  remain  after  paying  interest, 
there  is  no  more  building,  no  more  manufacturing,  no 
more  farming,  no  more  investment  or  operation. 

Money  scarcity  renders  them  unprofitable,  and  the 
wealth,  which  would  have  been  created  has  no  existence. 
Thus  scarcity  of  money  lowers  wages  through  scarcity 
of  work.      Thus  scarcity  of  money  raises  cost  of  living 


LAND    CURRENCY  47 

through  scarcity  of  wealth.  Reverse  this,  and  make 
money  plenty.  Then  money  is  cheap  and  interest  is  low, 
The  lower  the  interest  the  more  remaining  for  profit. 
Then  business  pays,  building  pays,  manufacturing  pays, 
farming  pays.  Labor  is  in  demand,  consequently  wages 
raise.  Hence  with  plenty  of  money  we  have  plenty  of 
wealth,  the  many  being  employed.  Hence  wealth  or 
cost  of  living  is  cheap,  and  wages  which  created  the 
wealth  are  high.  Hence  the  axiom:  Money  plenty, 
wages  high,  living  cheap;  money  scarce,  wages  low, 
living  dear. 

A  banker's  query. 

A  banker  inquires  if  land  currency  would  not, 
after  it  had  expanded  values,  be  loaned  on  these  ex- 
pansions, and  as  these  loans  expanded  the  expansion 
further  loans  would  then  be  loaned  on  the  expansions 
of  the  expansions,  and  so  on  and  so  forth  into  eternity. 
We  have  stated  that  land  currency,  like  any  other 
currency  loaned  on  a  value,  would  have  to  pay  its 
interest,  and  therefore  the  amount  of  its  loans  would 
not  depend  upon  the  amount  of  the  expanded  security, 
but  upon  the  certainty  of  profit,  as  profit  would  have 
to  pay  the  interest.  No  one  does  now,  and  no  one 
would,  under  any  circumstances,  borrow  money  beyond 
possibility  of  investment  and  pay  two  per  cent. 

If  they  did  under  land  currency,  foreclosure  would 
check  the  folly  and  as  certainly  check  the  fantastic 
idea  of  this  banker.  Certainly,  the  expansion  of  values 
would  be  pro  rata  to  the  issuance  of  land  currency;  but 
as  "interest  and  profit"  limit  the  volume  of  currency, 
the  expansion  of  values  could  not  get  in  excess  of  that 
which  expanded  them,  and  thus  land  currency's  ex- 
pansion of  values  would  have  limit. 


48  LAND     CURRENCY. 

[But  why  all  this  dread  of  increase  of  values,  of  increase  of  money, 
of  increase  of  wealth?  Surely,  there  seems  to  be  more  fear  that  times 
may  be  too  good  than  too  bad.  In  California's  early  days,  what 
made  times  then  so  good  and  men  so  noble  ?  Nothing  but  plenty 
of  money.  All  that  earth  needs  to  make  it  a  heaven  is  a  true  form 
of  money.     We  have  a  false  one,  and  it  is  a  hell.] 

STEADY  RATE  OF  INTEREST  AND  NO  FLUCTUATION. 

Its  steady  rate  of  interest  and  no  fluctuation  would 
be  no  small  item  in  land  currency's  favor.  Its  steady 
rate,  fixed  by  law,  and  only  lowered  or  raised  by 
national  enactment,  would  have  the  advantage  of 
making  business  investment  less  of  a  lottery  and  more 
of  a  certainty.  For  if  your  business  is  carried  upon 
a  loan  arranged  when  the  rates  are  ten  per  cent,  and 
mine  is  carried  upon  a  loan  arranged  when  the  rates  are 
five  per  cent,  I  can  as  certainly  undersell  joii  and  ex- 
pand my  business  until  it  overshadows  yours  as  a 
plant  can  grow  and  overshadow  its  neighbor  which  re- 
ceives less  sunlight.  Thus  land  currency  having  a 
steady,  fixed  rate,  no  one's  business  would  be  either 
favored  or  crippled  by  the  fluctuation  of  interest, 
which  would  be  the  same,  alike,  January  or  December. 

FOR   THE  POOR  AS  WELL  AS  THE    RICH. 

Our  Declaration  of  Independence  declares  that 
all  men  are  created  equal.  They  may  be  created  so, 
but  cannot  stay  so,  when  one  person  can  borrow 
capital  at  four  per  cent  and  another  must  pay  ten; 
when  a  large  loan  is  at  more  favorable  terms  than  a 
small  loan.  But  Government  land  currency  rate  would 
be  the  same  to  all.  It  would  present  the  same  rate 
to  the  great  and  to  the  less  alike.  And  thus,  in  zls 
economy  at  least,  all  men  and  women   too   would   be 


LAND    CURRENCY.  49 

free  and  equal.  So  long  as  the  large  borrower  can  se- 
cure better  terms  than  the  small,  the  rich  must  grow 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  for  the  weak  weakened 
cannot  long  stand  against  the  strong  strengthened. 
And  thus  land  currency,  presenting  the  same  smiling 
face  to  the  great  and  to  the  less,  would  be  just. 

WOULD   GIVE   EMPLOYMENT. 

Land  currency  would  be  a  currency  whose  nature 
would  bring  about  continual  improvements  and  em- 
ployment of  labor.  With  land  currency  you  could 
not  afford  to  do  nothing  but  watch  some  poor 
fellow  who  wished  to  improve,  and  then  lend  it 
to  him  at  a  round  rate,  large  enough  to  absorb 
the  entire  profits  on  his  improvements,  and  finally  his 
improvements  as  well.  For  the  party  being  able  to 
borrow  money  from  the  Government  at  such  low  inter- 
est, and  you  being  unable  to  make  usury  upon  him, 
would  have  to  use  your  money  in  improvements,  and 
thus  yourself  give  einployment.  Thus  it  would  turn 
the  usurer  into  an  employer,  and  that  which  now  sup- 
presses employment  it  would  make  a  creator  of  employ- 
ment. This  would  certainly  bless  the  home  of  the  toiler, 
and  probably  save  the  soul  of  the  usurer. 

PROPERTY    NOT     SAFE    UNDER    THE     PRESENT   SYSTEM. 

Your  property  which  you  have  toiled  a  lifetime  for 
is  not  safe  if  the  community  is  suffering  for  money. 
Property  is  one  thing,  but  cash  is  another.  True,  your 
property  may  bring  cash,  and  your  property  may  be 
large  and  your  debt  small;  yet,  as  small  as  it  may 
be,  if  the  cash  cannot  be  had,  if  the  community  be  suf- 
fering from  money  famine,  your  property  cuts  no  fig- 


50  LAND    CURRENCY, 

iwe^  and  its  value  must  shrink  within  the  premium  of 
the  cash  and  disappear  within  the  small  amount  of  your 
debt.  Study  this  subtle  alchemy  of  finance,  and  you 
will  learn  how  twenty  dollars  of  property  is  swallowed 
by  one  dollar  of  cash.  No  one's  earnings,  no  one's 
possessions  are  safe  if  money  is  scarce,  or  in  the  con- 
trol of  a  ring. 

UNIMPROVED    LANDHOLDING    DISCOURAGED. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  philosophy :  the  philosophy 
of  Fear  and  the  philosophy  of  Favor.  The  philosophy 
of  Fear  is  that  of  Tax,  Tariffs,  Takes  and  Clubs.  The 
philosophy  of  Favor  is  the  reverse  of  all  these,  and 
offers  freedom  and  vantage  to  virtue.  Men  do  not 
act  through  compulsion,  but  through  profit.  Force 
fails  and  favor  wins.  We  do  not  propose  to  tax,  tariff, 
take,  club,  or  indianize  the  unimproved  landowner 
into  doing  right.  We  propose  to  make  it  profitable 
for  him  to  do  right;  to  do  better  by  him  than  he  is 
doing  by  himself.  We  propose  to  give  the  landholder 
a  currency  free  from  usury,  which  will  relieve  his  im- 
provements from  tariffs,  taxes  and  takes.  To  give  him  a 
currency  whose  rent  will  not  exceed  the  profits  of  his 
improvements,  and  allow  him  no  excuse  to  not  improve. 
To  make  it  pay  to  do  right.  If  you  sat  to  dine,  and  a 
person  appropriated  half  your  meal,  it  would  be  simply 
a  tax,  tariff,  take,  or  steal.  If  two  trade  knives  and  a 
third  charges  a  blade  to  allow  the  trade,  that  would  be 
called  "  interest,"  and  would  also  be  a  take,  tariff,  tax, 
or  steal.  Land  currency  would  effervesce  this  oblig- 
ing individual.  We  propose  to  give  the  land  improver 
a  currency  which  would  not  only  remove  this  middle- 
man into  the  past,  but  also  that  other  ancient  party  of 


LAND    CURRENCY.  51 

the  first  part,  the  •'  taz  collector."  Men  do  wrong  be- 
cause society  makes  it  unprofitable  to  do  right.  Land 
currency  makes  the  right  profitable.  It  touches  the 
heart  through  the  pocket;  allows  a  man  to  follow  his 
nobler  instincts.  Society  has  reversed  the  truth. 
Wrong  is  only  wrong  because  it  is  the  greatest  loss. 
Society  endeavors  to  make  "right"  the  greatest  loss. 
Right  should  be  profitable  at  all  times  anywhere  and 
in  anything.  Land  currency  would  tend  to  make  it  so. 
The  sole  reason  underlying  land  possession  is  sim- 
ply profit.  If  money  rent  is  more  than  improvement 
rent,  or  interest  more  than  profit,  then  land  lies  un- 
improved. Land  currency  would  not /br^^  landhold- 
ers to  improve,  but  would  present  two  sources  (^i  profit 
to  im.prove. 

First.  Cheap  money — making  profit  on  improve- 
ments more  than  cost. 

Second.     Abolishing  tax  on  improvements. 

Land  currency  would  also  remove  from  the  land- 
owner a  power  of  evil — the  power  to  not  improve  with 
his  money,  but  to  loan  it  at  usurous  rates  and  cripple 
the  improvements  of  others.  Money  zuould  thus  have 
to  impi  ove  or  have  no  profit. 

To-day,  money  can  make  more  by  absorbing  im- 
provements than  it  can  make  by  projecting.  When  it 
is  more  profitable  to  build  and  employ  than  to  rob  and 
destroy,  then  we  will  build  and  employ.  When  a 
small  piece  of  improved  land  is  more  profitable  than  a 
laro-e  unimproved  piece,  when  the  improved  yields 
profit,  and  the  unimproved  yields  no  profit,  then 
there  will  be  very  few  people  owning  the  moon,  or 
the  air,  or  the  sky,  or  unimproved  land. 


52  LAND   CURRENCY. 

UNIMPROVED  LANDHOLDING  DESTROYED. 

Exactly  as  the  taxes  of  a  county  are  applied 
to  its  own  expense  and  not  to  other  counties, 
so  the  receipts  through  interest  from  land  currency 
would  be  credited  on  the  Land  Currency  Bureau's 
books  to  the  county  paying  it.  The  national 
apportionment  of  the  county  would  be  deducted  by  the 
bureau,  and  the  balance  given  the  county,  to  be  ap- 
plied to  its  state  and  county  costs.  The  revenue 
of  land  currency,  therefore,  would  remain  with  the 
community  whose  land  loans  created  it,  to  relieve 
from  tax  the  very  lands  whose  improvements  caused 
it.  Thus  a  community  whose  land  remained  un- 
improved would  be  forced  to  tax  its  land  for  Govern- 
ment cost,  while  another,  whose  land  improvements 
increased,  would  have  less  and  less  necessity  to  tax. 

There  would  be  few  holders  of  unimproved  lands 
who  would  prefer  to  pay  tax,  than  to  pay  none, 
by  profitable  improvements,  possible  through  land 
currency.  I  hardly  think  there  would  be  any  consid- 
erable number;  but  in  case  there  remained  such,  the 
effect  of  land  currency  would  make  it  exceedingly 
cold  for  them.  For  if  the  people  of  a  county  dis- 
covered that  their  neighbors  in  an  adjoining  county 
were  relieved  of  taxation  through  land  improvement, 
and  that  they  still  bear  the  burden  of  tax,  through 
their  holders  of  large  tracts  of  land  refusing  to  im- 
prove or  allowing  others  to,  then  they,  too,  would  de- 
mand that  land  bear  the  burden  of  taxation  in  some 
way,  and  they  would  resort  to  the  lesser  in  order 
to  inaugurate  the  greater — they  would  immediately 
place   a    ''single   tax'    upon    such    lands,    by   which 


LAND    CURRENCY.  e53 

''single  tax''  they  would  compel  folly  to  disgorge  and 
give  way  to  the  greater  truth  of  No  Tax. 

But  the  "  single  tax''  would  avail  men  naught  if, 
after  this  disgorgement  of  large  unimproved  land  hold- 
ings, the  poor  landowners  coming  into  possession  merely 
found,  after  building  their  homes,  buying  their  stock, 
implements,  seed  and  provender,  that  money  rent 
can  absorb  the  product  of  the  landed  as  completely  as 
land  rent  can  shear  the  landless.  And  here  it  is  that 
land  currency  steps  in  and  proclaims  the  greater 
truth,  and  not  only  rests  all  costs  on  land,  but  places 
a  premium  on  improvement  and  a  burden  on  unim- 
provement,  abolishing  at  once  the  burdens  of  tax  and 
usury. 


FIRST    NATIONAL    LAND   CURRENCY   LEAGUE. 


($^ ORGANIZED ^^S) 

Sai)  Frapci^co,  Cali^orpia,   Au^u^b   21,   1890- 


OFFICEKS— Peesidekt,  Baron  McComb;  Vice-Peesident,  T.  E. 
Thornton;  Tkeasueek,  S.  H.  Depuy;  Seceetaky,  Mark  Maybell;  Executive 
Committee— Chaieman,  Stephen  Maybell;  Dr.  A.  D.  Fonchy,  W.  P.  Grace, 
A.  Manzer,  J.  C.  Green,  T.  E.  Thornton.  A.  Printer,  Edward  Collins, 
Gus  Eommel,  W.  M.  Laugton,  I.  Larsen,  Miss  Lena  Barbara  Wahl, 
Miss  Eva  Levy. 

PLATFORM. 

National  land  currency  proclaims  a  no-tax  system, 
by  the  Government  charging  a  necessary  and  just 
price  for  use  of  currency  loaned  on  land,  and  the  ap- 
plication of  revenue  thus  derived  to  Government  cost. 

We  hold  that  no  special  commodity  has  a  divine 
right  to  coinage  or  investment  of  special  privilege,  to 
the  exclusion  of  another  equally  as  adaptable.  And 
that  land  value  stands  pre-eminently  the  fittest  value 
to  be  coined. 

We  hold  that  a  currency  can  be  issued  by  Govern- 
ment upon  land  held  as  security  equally  as  well  as 
upon  metal  held  as  security. 

Therefore  the  Land  Currency  League  of  America  pro- 
poses to  substitute  for  taxation  a  revenue  to  be  de- 
rived from  interest  charged  by  the  nation  for  the  use 
of  its  exchange  stamp  affixed  to  land  currency,  pre- 
senting the  great  issue  to  the  people  of 

NO    TAX. 

As  the  cost  of  Government  would  be  borne  by  the 
cost  of  currency,  and  as  the  cost  of  currency  would  be 


LAND  CURRENCY  LEAGUE.  55 

nominal,  investments  would  have  generous  margin; 
whereas,  now  usury  leaves  no  margin,  but  absorbs 
profit  and  plant  as  well.  As  the  cost  of  this  currency 
would  apply  to  taxation,  its  cost  would  be  practically 
returned  to  investments,  and  thus  abolish  taxation  as 
well  as  usury.  As  it  would  circulate  through  every 
department  of  industry,  its  advantages  and  prosperity 
would  flow  to  the  employer  and  employed — would 
open  up  channels  of  occupation  to  moneyless  millions, 
and  place  our  nation  upon  a  higher  plane  of  happiness, 
wealth  and  progress. 

[Signed]  Baron  McComb,  President. 


CALL. 

The  first  National  Land  Currency  League  calls  for  or- 
ganization upon  the  great  issue  set  forth  in  its  platform. 
It  is  a  keynote  such  as  never  reform  had  before.  It 
is  in  harmony  with  present  ideas,  and  violates  no  cher- 
ished relations.  It  is  popular,  yet  radical.  It  requires 
but  a  simple  enactment,  and  needs  neither  nullification 
nor  alteration  of  laws.  Its  harmonious,  uncomplicated, 
and  intensely  practical  proposition  meets  unanimous 
indorsement.  It  needs  but  action  as  well  as  indorse- 
ment to  make  its  truth  a  mighty  issue,  overshadowing 
idle  opposition.  Let  every  one,  who  perceives  its 
light^  act.  Organize  leagues  of  from  five  to  five  thou- 
sand members  wherever  you  may  be.  Thought  must 
have  action  or  it  remains  but  thought.  Each  one 
owes  a  duty  to  self  and  to  country — here  is  that  duty 
set  forth. 


56  LAND  CURRENCY  LEAGUE. 

Let  the  women  of  America  also  take  up  this  zuork 
as  well  as  men. 

Poverty  bears  more  sore  and  cruel  upon  her  than 
upon  man.  She  feels  keener  and  receives  worse. 
Here,  then,  is  her  cause  also. 

Stephen  Maybell, 
Chairman  Executive  Committee  N.  L.  C.  L. 

Headquarters,  265  Clara  St.,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 


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TESTIMONIALS. 


"Never  so  long  in  reading  hook  before.  As 
I  said,  'Simply  Immense  ! ! '" — George  Fran- 
cis Train,  Tremont  House,  Boston. 

"A  marvelous  and  almost  matchless  book." — 
Miss  Lizzie  Bennett,  Metaphysician,  Mills' 
Mills,  N.  Y. 

"A  very,  very,  remarkable  book," — Rev.  W. 
J.  Colville,  in   his  lecture  delivered  in  Meta 


'Wish  I  could  put  a  copy  in  every  library.  I 
consider  it  the  best  and  clearest,  most  inspired 
work  on  the  subject  that  has  appeared.  It 
paves  the  way  for  the  grand  march  of  the  com- 
ing century.  It  is  so  advanced  that  its  author 
must  not  expect  to  escape  persecution." — Prof. 
Isaac  B.  Rumford,  Whethng,  Wtst  Va, 

"Maybell  is  a  clear  and  forcible  writer.     The 


ph>sical   Hall,  San   Francisco,  upon  the  book  i  book  will  be  p-ized."— H.  N.  Mapquand,  Ed. 

itself.  "Bi-rkeley  Advocate,"  Berkeley,  Cal. 

"I  congratulate  you  in  having  written  one  of 
the  best  of  books." — Lizzie  Denton  Baker, 
Author  of  "Psychometry,"  Lower  Lake,  Cal. 

'This  admirable  book  written  by  Stephen 
Maybell,  is  on  our  table.  We  consider  it  the 
best  thing  of  the  age,  and  should  be  read  by 
every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  world." — P. 

M.  miim^mi'm%i\^'^  'l¥n^f^'  c^ai 

Valley,  West  Va.       ^.p    "'^    ~  ^«^iA 

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"Language  is  inadequate  to  express  our  thanks 
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so  impress  our  readers  with  the  importance  of 
their  reading  this  graph'c  and  admirably  written 
work,  so  that  they  would  urge  their  neighbors  to 
do  the  same,  until  it  has  been  read  by  every 
intelligent  human  being  in  the  world." — Lee 
Crandall,  Ed,  "National  View,"  Washington 
D.  C. 


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